politics

The Sinterklaas celebrations in the Netherlands last year again featured a very heated debate about the alleged racist character of Zwarte Piet. A group protestors consisting of mostly black people (and some whites) consider Zwarte Piet racist, while the majority of Dutch white people see it as tradition rather than racism. I recently watched a documentary about the matter, “Zwart als roet”, also available in English. This documentary, made by the (white) Sunny Bergman, appeals to a white public to consider the issue from a different perspective.

The matter was not a big deal to me before the discussion. Initially I considered the protestors a bunch of self-victimizing whiners who took offense at a tradition which was not meant to be offensive. Recently, and certainly after watching the documentary, I’ve come to see that the protestors are mostly right: Zwarte Piet is racist. Zwarte Piet became a tradition in the Netherlands during the 19th century, during a time when there were not as much Dutch people with foreign heritage as now. This, and the character of that time, meant that no one spoke up about the issue. Back in the day Zwarte Piet may not have been conceived of as consciously racist, to demean black people, but it is rightfully experienced as racist by black people now.

Especially revealing to me are the scenes where Sunny Bergman and a collaborator walk around in a British city as Zwarte Piet. Sunny remarks that most white Dutch people are prejudiced because we grew up with Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet. For British people this is not the case: they are quick to condemn Zwarte Piet als gravely racist. This is because Great Britain and the United States had a tradition in blackface performances, we are told.

Later in the documentary, a parallel to broader racism is drawn. In another experiment, a white person and two persons with darker skin color try to steal a bike. Amazingly, the white person is even given assistance by passers-by to break a chain lock on the bike, because people consider him reliable. On the other hand, the bystanders quickly recognize the darker skinned persons as thieves and alert the police. Being white, it’s difficult for us to recognize this unconscious undercurrent of racism. The experimental method used by the documentary is a powerful means to expose it.

Apart from the unconscious racism, there is also conscious, explicit racism. It’s understandable that black people are upset when they are called ‘Zwarte Piet’ as a joke. All the racist insults hurled at the protestors are also evidence of the problem. I do think that some of the protestors lacked subtlety in their message. The average Dutch person who grew up with Zwarte Piet probably was amazed and insulted when they were indirectly called racists. Had they been more careful in their message, they would have received more sympathy because people would understand better.

I still like Zwarte Piet as a concept and I would want my children to experience the tradition while black people don’t feel shamed. Fortunately, this requires only a small interventions: remove the earrings, the wig with black curly hair, lipstick and completely black facial paint and replace it with smudges of black paint over the face. Anyone who considers the history of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet will realize the tradition has changed a lot in two centuries, so this is no objection to me. I was taught that Zwarte Piet is black because he climbed through the chimney, after all. This has already been done in several places last year, but needs to get wider following. However, some have also painted Zwarte Piet yellow and other strange colors, which is taking it too far in my opinion. Some schools even went further than that and consider Zwarte Piet a negative stereotype in all cases, no matter what color he is. They replaced Zwarte Piet with commercialized ‘minion’ figures. That is completely absurd.

In September 2015 I watched Cowspiracy, a documentary about the impact of livestock on climate change. It explains why cattle rearing is so damaging to our climate and doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It’s well made and is likely to achieve its goal to get the viewers thinking about their diets.

The documentary is reasonably well researched, but there is valid criticism on the sources used in Cowspiracy. An earlier version of the film claimed that livestock caused 18,5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, based on an FAO report. The revised version of the film doesn’t mention a figure, but the creators admit on their website that the FAO lowered the figure to 14,5% later. Unfortunately they do continue to support a single study which concluded that livestock is responsible for 51% of greenhouse gases, which is not credible to me after all the criticism I’ve read. Even so, the 14,5% figure is still more than all greenhouse gas emissions from transport, which are 13% according to the sources used for the film.

Another issue is the claim that you can’t be an environmentalist if you eat meat. As said elsewhere, I don’t think it is black and white. If there is mountainous land which is unsuitable for agriculture but which can be used for entirely grass-fed cattle, I don’t see a problem. The same goes for hunting and fishing responsibly. In practice supply of animal food from these two former categories is very limited in the Western world, of course.

You might take an issue with some of statistics and sources used in Cowspiracy, but its message that we should adopt a vegan diet (or in my eyes, at least drastically reduce our consumption of animal products) still stands. There is overwhelming evidence for the extent of the problems caused by livestock. As you can read on their page about the facts, cattle requires enormous inputs in land, water and fodder crops when compared to growing plants. Feeding half our global grain supply to cattle is crazy.

An recent study from Erb et al. (2016) in the prestigious journal Nature sheds more light on the problem. They studied the options for feeding the world in 2050 without further deforestation. A Western diet for everyone is possible, but only if “cropland yields rose massively and cropland expanded strongly into areas that are today used for grazing”. I don’t see skyrocketing cropland yields happening with all the news about failed harvests and drought caused by climate change lately. The authors state that human diets are the strongest influence on our options. They continue that vegan and vegetarians diets allow us to choose from many more options and that these are “associated with only half the cropland demand, grazing intensity and overall biomass harvest of comparable meat-based human diets”.

We won’t be able to keep up our current level of meat consumption with further human population growth and climate change. *You* are responsible for the preservation of our planet, so start lowering your meat consumption drastically or become vegetarian or vegan. Do what must be done, even if it is inconvenient for you! Personally, I still like meat, fish and cheese, but I haven’t cooked meat in years and probably eat less than a two kilos of fish in year. I do still eat meat a few days a month when others cook for me, however. I will strive to lower my consumption of meat, fish and cheese further.

Due the increasing amount of boat refugees coming to the European Union as of late, the the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) proposed on 22 March this year that we completely close the outer borders of the EU for asylum seekers. According to them asylum seekers are costly for us, they facilitate human trafficking and it’s hard to separate legit refugees from economic migrants and terrorists. The massive influx of refugees would cause societal breakdown in the EU. Refugees should be housed in their own region and be able to build a new life there, possibly with aid from the EU.

While I am sympathetic to some of the reasoning of the proposal, it lacks solidarity and is short-sighted. In some cases regional capacity for hosting refugees is already stressed to the limit. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan hosted respectively 1,59 million, 1,15 million and 654.100 refugees according to the UNHCR Global Trends report on forced displacement in 2014. Lebanon is even the country with the largest amount of refugees compared to its own population in the world, with 232 refugees per 1.000 inhabitants. That’s insane and makes it obvious to me that our sense of solidarity obliges us to help out with hosting Syrian refugees. During the debate in the House of Representatives about the plan, it was claimed that even 95% of refugees are already hosted in their own region. Also, legal experts were quick to point out that the VVD’s plan would violate international treaties, making it difficult to implement. It was clear that except for the right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV), there was no support for the plan.

My own party GroenLinks, the Dutch Green Party, responded with an alternative proposal. It boils down to five points: preventing that more refugees drown, allowing refugees to apply for asylum while outside the EU, improve facilities to house refugees in their own region, better distribution of refugees within the EU and structural solutions for the refugee problem.

The alternative plan of my own political party sounds good, but it refuses to acknowledge the existence of economic migration. And while they might not form a significant part of the refugees, economic migrants do exist. On several news reports I’ve seen refugees from Pakistan. Yes, there’s a war in North-West Pakistan, but millions of Pakistanis are apparently able to lead relatively peaceful lives in other regions of their country. I think Pakistan should be able to help it’s own internal refugees, possibly with international aid.

Also consider that the public housing sector in the Netherlands can’t cope with the demand exerted by all the refugees which are entitled to housing. They practically receive housing for free because they are likely to live on welfare. They are given precedence over the Dutch citizens who are on the waiting list for public housing. The obvious reason refugees seek asylum in Western Europe is that they are entitled to much more aid than in neighboring states in their region. While I agree that we should spend more on foreign aid for refugees, I think we should make our public services for asylum seekers more sober simultaneously. I don’t feel the plan of GroenLinks addresses these issues sufficiently.

I totally agree that we should be generous to refugees from Syria. But they can be given temporary asylum in order to force their return when the Syrian Civil War is over. They can be housed in more sober asylum centers or intermodal container housing instead of public housing.

Let’s take a look at some statistics for eye injuries sustained during the New Year celebrations on 31 December 2014 and 1 January 2015 in the Netherlands.

• Eight people had one eye blinded by fireworks, one person had both eyes blinded.
• A total of 206 people got injured in the eye and for 93 of these the damage was permanent.
• For 111 people, the injuries were caused by fireworks set off by someone else.

This time, the allowed time for setting off fireworks was halved, but the amount of people with eye injuries decreased by merely 17%. Innocent bystanders constitute the majority of the injured with 54%. For how long does this mutilation need to continue before we realize that consumer fireworks are too dangerous?

One of the apologists of the fireworks sellers says that bystanders should remain inside when the fireworks are set off or use safety goggles when they venture outside. After being confronted with these statistics I will definitely stay inside. But isn’t it strange that bystanders need to take security measures like buying safety goggles? Should it not be the responsibility of those who set off fireworks to ensure safety?

Year after year it turns out that not everyone wants to buy safety goggles and that consumers can’t handle fireworks safely. It’s evident why Dutch ophthalmologists plead for a ban on consumer fireworks. Just like my political party, GroenLinks. It seems like the movement to ban consumer fireworks is gaining strength: 56% of the Dutch people favor such a ban. I hope a ban becomes reality sooner rather later, before hundreds more have their eyes mangled by fireworks in the years ahead.

Last year in October it was revealed that artificial ice skating rinks in the Netherlands depend on government subsidies for their survival. Most of the sixteen ice rinks with a 400 meter track in our country would go bankrupt without subsidies. The small amount of ice rinks which do not receive subsidies do receive millions of public funding for new construction or renovations. Electricity used to create and cool the ice floor is responsible for the majority of their operating costs.

For centuries we were restricted to outdoor ice skating when a cold winter allowed it. The first artificial ice rink in the Netherlands (and the third in the world) which was longer than 400 meters was built only 54 years ago in 1961, the Jaap Edenbaan in Amsterdam. That operating these venues would consume large amounts of electricity and thus fossil fuels was second to our desire for luxury and convenience. In these times of climate change, can we still afford to use artificial ice rinks?

My girlfriend who frequents the Uithof ice rink in the Hague during the ice skating season will be cross with me for writing this, but I think they are an unnecessary luxury which we cannot afford. Especially now that our winters have become so mild due to global warming they consume far too much energy. To provide some figures, according to the municipality of Delft the indoor artificial ice rink in Delft consumes 110.000 kWh in one ice skating season. The average household in the Netherlands consumes 3.500 kWh in a year. So, the electricity used by the ice rink equals that of 31,4 households.

Interestingly, the municipality of Delft argues that the ice rink is CO₂ neutral because the ice rink finances three wind turbines which generate 500 MWh a year. This argument seems compelling, but does not convince me: that green energy could have been used for more essential things like lighting in buildings. Of course, the average oil refinery in Rotterdam’s port would use more electricity than an ice rink (I couldn’t find sources for this), but that is no excuse. It is essential that we start saving energy to fight climate change, so everything which consumes large amounts of electricity should be scrutinized, especially those things which are luxuries.

At the very least local governments should stop subsidizing ice rinks. They are practically financing climate change. If the public does not want to pay for the real operating costs of ice rinks and some would go bankrupt, so be it. There are plenty of other sports which are not so energy intensive. If you still want to go ice skating in the winter, take a train to go to the Weißensee in Austria or something.

Since they were introduced to the mass market a few years ago, I was convinced that EVs (electric vehicles) are much more friendly for the environment than vehicles with conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). When I had a discussion at work last year about the merits of EVs with a colleague, I desired to show him evidence for my claim. I found this 2013 study which compared the lifecycle environmental impact of EVs with ICEVs. The summary of this study reads as follows:

We find that EVs powered by the present European electricity mix offer a 10% to 24% decrease in global warming potential (GWP) relative to conventional diesel or gasoline vehicles assuming lifetimes of 150,000 km. However, EVs exhibit the potential for significant increases in human toxicity, freshwater eco-toxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and metal depletion impacts, largely emanating from the vehicle supply chain. Results are sensitive to assumptions regarding electricity source, use phase energy consumption, vehicle lifetime, and battery replacement schedules. Because production impacts are more significant for EVs than conventional vehicles, assuming a vehicle lifetime of 200,000 km exaggerates the GWP benefits of EVs to 27% to 29% relative to gasoline vehicles or 17% to 20% relative to diesel. An assumption of 100,000 km decreases the benefit of EVs to 9% to 14% with respect to gasoline vehicles and results in impacts indistinguishable from those of a diesel vehicle. Improving the environmental profile of EVs requires engagement around reducing vehicle production supply chain impacts and promoting clean electricity sources in decision making regarding electricity infrastructure.

The following passage is more specific on the impact of the fuel sources used to generate electricity for EVs:

For all scenarios analyzed, the use phase is responsible for the majority of the GWP impact, either directly through fuel combustion or indirectly during electricity production. When powered by average European electricity, EVs are found to reduce GWP by 20% to 24% compared to gasoline ICEVs and by 10% to 14% relative to diesel ICEVs under the base case assumption of a 150,000 km vehicle lifetime. When powered by electricity from natural gas, we estimate LiNCM EVs offer a reduction in GHG emissions of 12% compared to gasoline ICEVs, and break even with diesel ICEVs. EVs powered by coal electricity are expected to cause an increase in GWP of 17% to 27% compared with diesel and gasoline ICEVs.

A conference paper from 2010 reaches a similar conclusion and supplies some illustrative graphs for those of us who are more visually inclined. The 2013 study was given a spin by some news media to write clickbait articles which portray EVs as more destructive to the environment than ICEVs. That obviously does not follow from the conclusions of the study: EVs are better for the environment if powered by the average European electricity mix, but worse if they are powered by electricity generated with coal. This is also the emphasis of Greenpeace. According to other research from the USA, EVs are better for the environment than average ICEVs, even if the dirtiest electricity mix in the USA is used.  There has been some criticism from the the pro-EV camp as well: due to flaws in the 2013 study it overstated the environmental impact of EV production.

I started wondering, what is the average European electricity mix? In the data supplied with the 2013 study the electricity mix data is referenced to be in the final tab of the spreadsheet, but that tab doesn’t exist. Even so, we can use the data from Eurostat for 2012 (figures converted from GWh to TWh):

Compare this with the data on the electricity mix for the Netherlands in 2012 from Statistics Netherlands. I converted the data from MWh to TWh. Eurostat should have this data for the Netherlands in the same table they use in their data visualization I referenced in the previous paragraph. However, I can’t figure out how I can distill the same figures from that data as they give in the visualization. The data from Statistics Netherlands and Eurostat doesn’t match exactly so I had to modify the categories, that’s why the total in the Dutch data is 96%.

The data shows that nuclear and renewable energy constitute a much smaller share of the energy sources used in the Netherlands. Gas is a much more important source. On the other hand coal is used slightly less. Gas is cleaner than coal, though not as clean as nuclear power (considering only emissions) or renewables. Not desiring to make further intricate calculations myself, I’d assume that the electricity mix in the Netherlands is clean enough to make use of EVs preferable over ICEVs. Of course it’s imperative that we invest much more in renewable energy, because our current percentage of 12% is an embarrassment.

Even so, producing all those EVs would demand a lot of resources. Also consider that EVs with seats for five persons, like ICEVs currently, will often be used by just a single person to commute to work. We keep the problem of traffic congestion as well. This is inefficient when compared to public transport, which should still be a preferred investment.

I’m still catching up on blog posts which are overdue. I’m an unsatisfied customer of Eneco, a large Dutch energy company. Their customer support is incompetent and their welcome gift arrived many weeks later than promised. Their gift, a Philips vacuum cleaner, turned out to have the suction power of a chain smoker with terminal lung cancer.

So when they ran an ad last year on 29 July in the free Dutch newspaper Metro, I naturally was suspicious of them. In this advert, it was claimed that a one-way flight to Southern Europe would cause CO₂ emissions equal to the CO₂ emitted to produce electricity for an average household for one year.

The advert didn’t quote any figures, but according to data compiled in 2015 by he Dutch environmental organization Milieu Centraal 1,6 (metric) tonnes of CO₂ was emitted to produce electricity for an average household of 2,2 persons. It should be noted the total CO₂ emissions for this household, including indirect emissions, are calculated to be much higher at 23 tonnes.

Milieu Centraal also calculated CO₂ emissions for several example flights, including one from Amsterdam to Malaga in southern Spain. They give a figure of 655 kilos CO₂, not much more than the 500 kilos for using a car with two persons. The bus and the train have much lower emissions for this journey, respectively 100 and 200 kilos of CO₂. While Milieu Centraal notes that high-altitude emissions are extra damaging, 655 kilos doesn’t approach 1.600 kilos by a long shot. A return flight is closer at 1.310 kilos.

While Eneco is wrong on the math, they have a point that aircraft are extremely polluting and that we need to avoid them as much as much as possible. More on that later in another post.

Today I’ve taken a look at the blog of prof. dr. Sylvester Eijffinger, which caught my attention since I mentioned him in my post of 5 September. I have some comments on his most recent post which discusses a proposal for a flat tax in the Netherlands. Because comments on his blog are disabled I’ll have to respond through my own weblog.

Tax brackets can discourage earning more income

One of the arguments Eijffinger gives in favor of the flat tax is that the current system of tax brackets in the Netherlands can discourage participation in the labor market. He notes that some people work part time, especially if they have a partner, to avoid higher tax brackets. If they work more they enter a higher tax bracket, which would require them to pay more taxes.

Eijffinger’s comment is rather short because it was a contribution to a discussion in the Dutch newspaper Metro, so I guess he couldn’t afford to give an example. Without an example it’s difficult to understand the problem, so let me give one. The first tax bracket in the Netherlands goes up to € 19.645 and has a tax rate of 37%. The second goes from € 19.646 to € 33.363 with a tax rate of 42%.

Let’s say I work part time to stay in the first tax bracket and make € 18.000. Then I get the option to work more so that I can earn € 22.000. In the first bracket I pay 18.000 * 0.37 = € 6.660. With the higher salary, I pay 19.645 * 0.37 = € 7.268,65 plus 2355 * 0.42 = € 989,10. Then the total tax I pay is € 8.257,75 over € 22.000, or 37,54%. Hardly a steep raise in the effective tax rate because I crossed the limit of the first tax bracket, right?

A solution without resorting to a flat tax

Let’s assume that my example doesn’t fit the point Eijffinger was trying to make. There is reason to believe that the effect can be stronger in other situations, the difference between the third and the fourth tax bracket for example is 10% instead of 5%. Let’s assume that mr. Eijffinger is correct.

In that case, couldn’t we simply use a formula to determine the tax rate for a progressive tax? It’s even simpler than tax brackets. For example, take the linear equation y=15+0.2*x which I’ve plotted here. In this formula “y” is the tax rate in percent and “x” is the income. This fixes the problem of suddenly having to pay much more taxes because the limit of a tax bracket is crossed.

I suggest this because I don’t believe that a flat tax can provide social justice for us. With a flat tax, a millionaire would pay the same percentage of taxes as a cleaner. Instead I think the strongest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden. Aren’t there plenty of other options to reduce inefficiency and bureaucracy in a progressive tax system?