Month: January 2011

Unions and education

Education is one of relatively few remaining industries that are heavily unionized in industrialized countries, including Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Given the societal importance it has, it seems worth examining whether that state of affairs serves the interests of the public at large. I certainly remember the disruptiveness of school strikes when I was growing up, and there is a plausible case that unions are one of the most powerful forces protecting the worst teachers. They also seem to have consistently opposed efforts to reward the best, preferring to reward seniority rather than competence. Arguably, the result is mediocrity in the profession and a lack of accountability. For instance, Eric Hanushek – an economist at Stanford – has concluded that if you could replace the bottom 5-8% of the worst teachers in the United States with teachers of average competence, the overall academic performance of American students would rise from near the bottom of international math and science rankings to near the top.

Arguably, unions are also able to exert undue political influence. They are able to lobby left-leaning political parties for favourable treatment, using money collected from membership dues. That is the basic model of lobbying employed by all interest groups, of course, but what is potentially worrisome is how that political support can be used to block the emergence of promising policies that would threaten union power, such as offering parents vouchers which they can use to cover a portion of private school fees, or merit-based pay schemes for teachers. Unions may be able to use wealth from an unjust status quo to fund the perpetuation of that same problematic state of affairs.

Are there any plausible or proven benefits to unions in education, except from the perspective of those who are members of them? Are there ways in which students would be worse off if they were taught by a non-unionized workforce, or one with a more limited right to strike? If so, can those benefits be said to adequately compensate for the harms that seem convincingly documented? If it is indeed the case that unions in the educational sector harm society at large – while benefiting their membership – it seems especially regrettable. Not only would it represent a situation in which a minority is exploiting its power over the population at large, but they would be doing so within an institution that is meant to be one of society’s great levelers. Those who lack access to decent educational options cannot plausibly be expected to thrive subsequently in many important areas of life, such as employment and informed and effective participation in public life.

A bit overstretched

Between work, the job search, running this site (and BuryCoal), and photography, I am finding myself rather busy these days.

That is the context in which I have been receiving a number of requests to do commercial photographic work. That is exciting and an opportunity to learn new skills. At the same time, it is a possible distraction from activities that are ultimately more important, such as making my own small contribution to the fight against climate change.

As such, I am going to be pretty picky about the projects I undertake. If the work is interesting or serves a group or cause that is worthy of approval, I will consider a potential project more favourably. Otherwise, I will be demanding a rate of pay that corresponds to the scarcity of my free hours.

Home for real

With work resuming tomorrow, my month of wandering is now truly at an end.

Many thanks to all those who hosted me: Meaghan in Hamilton; my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Bennington; and my cousins and Tristan in Toronto. My appreciation also goes out to all the friends and family I was lucky enough to see over that span.

With my life returning to a state of greater regularity, people can expect more regular updates here, with photos from the various journeys forthcoming.

All told, my time away has reinforced my desire to move to Toronto – or at least away from Ottawa.

Jordan Peterson on psychology

As a lecturer, the University of Toronto’s Jordan Peterson is quite something. Yesterday, Tristan showed me videos of a couple of his lectures. One of them – The Necessity of Virtue – is available online.

One thing I found striking about the talks (which are mostly about psychology and ethics) is just how much we know about the brain, and how much we can reduce seemingly complex human behaviours and experiences to be predictable operation of certain brain structures. I had not previously realized the full importance of the hypothalamus. In one particularly grim example, Peterson explains that a cat stripped of almost all of its brain, but left with a spinal cord and a hypothalamus, will still behave much like an ordinary cat, except that it will be unusually likely to explore and unable to mate (if male).

What humanity is learning about the brain (which seems to produce the mind) seems likely to have considerable importance both for understanding the world in important ways and for deciding how to act in it. I will be adding Peterson’s Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief to my reading list, and may even be able to finagle a way to audit one of his courses if I do move to Toronto.

Taking one action

Talking with my friend Meaghan, the question arose: what is the single most useful thing individuals can do easily to help address climate change? Almost certainly, it is taking some action to influence the politics in their country. For those living in democracies, there is probably nothing more useful they can do than nudging their elected representatives a bit toward understanding climate change, wanting to curb it, and being aware of how to do so.

As BuryCoal argues, the key to dealing with climate change is to stop burning fossil fuels. The more coal, oil, and gas stay underground, the less the climate will change. At the moment, I think that is probably the most important message people can convey to their representatives.

Of course, anyone who you tell that to is likely to come back at you with various objections. Fossil fuels power the world economy, for instance. It may be unrealistic to expect the average citizen to prepare counter-arguments for the major objections they will hear – which range from the realistic to the completely deluded. This major counter-argument, however, seems to have two responses. First, we do have alternatives. The total amount of renewable energy out there is huge, and we have many different ways to capture it. Second, nothing about the universe guarantees our current level of energy use. It may well be that future generations experience leaner times. That is far preferable to a world where they are trying to deal with catastrophic or runaway climate change.

The degree to which members of the general public need to understand climate change and its solutions is debatable. It may well be that the problem can be solved by stealth, without much input from the average individual. My fantasy climate change policy doesn’t call for much in the way of voluntary action. For those individuals who are concerned, I would say that first and foremost they should be expressing their deep concern to their elected representatives, highlighting how climate change is the challenge facing humanity and the most important current force that will determine how future generations live.

Once you have done that, you can go on to take actions that reduce your personal contribution to the problem, like improving the efficiency of your home, going vegetarian, reducing travel, etc. Ultimately, the emergence of society-wide mandatory solutions seems to have a much greater chance of addressing the problem than hoping for bottom-up voluntary actions to do the job.

One North American group focused on encouraging ordinary citizens to lobby their representatives for action on climate change is the Citizens Climate Lobby.

Batteries for large-scale energy storage

One challenge associated with renewable forms of energy like wind and solar power is that power stations of these types cannot usually produce energy all the time, and may not generate it at the time when it is needed most.

Energy storage is one mechanism for dealing with that, and can rely on various mechanisms like compressed air, pumped hydroelectric storage, and multi-lagoon tidal systems.

It is also encouraging that battery technology is improving. A company called Corvus now makes lithium ion batteries that consist of assemblies of 6.2 kilowatt-hour modules. These can be charged in 30 minutes and discharged in 6. They could be joined together in large arrays of up to 40 megawatt-hours and may eventually be cost-effective in some energy storage and load balancing roles.

The value of a doctorate

In their Christmas issue, The Economist included a special feature on PhDs, arguing that they may be a relatively poor choice for many people. The article contains some interesting nuggets:

  • “[U]niversities have discovered that PhD students are cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour. With more PhD students they can do more research, and in some countries more teaching, with less money. A graduate assistant at Yale might earn $20,000 a year for nine months of teaching. The average pay of full professors in America was $109,000 in 2009—higher than the average for judges and magistrates.”
  • “PhD students and contract staff known as “postdocs”, described by one student as “the ugly underbelly of academia”, do much of the research these days. There is a glut of postdocs too… Dr Freeman concluded from pre-2000 data that [I]f American faculty jobs in the life sciences were increasing at 5% a year, just 20% of students would land one. In Canada 80% of postdocs earn $38,600 or less per year before tax—the average salary of a construction worker. The rise of the postdoc has created another obstacle on the way to an academic post. In some areas five years as a postdoc is now a prerequisite for landing a secure full-time job.
  • “In America only 57% of doctoral students will have a PhD ten years after their first date of enrolment. In the humanities, where most students pay for their own PhDs, the figure is 49%.”
  • “Research at one American university found that those who finish are no cleverer than those who do not. Poor supervision, bad job prospects or lack of money cause them to run out of steam.”
  • “In some subjects the premium for a PhD vanishes entirely. PhDs in maths and computing, social sciences and languages earn no more than those with master’s degrees. The premium for a PhD is actually smaller than for a master’s degree in engineering and technology, architecture and education. Only in medicine, other sciences, and business and financial studies is it high enough to be worthwhile. Over all subjects, a PhD commands only a 3% premium over a master’s degree.”
  • “Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else.”

All this relates to the earlier discussion here about the recession and the value of grad school.

I do personally see appeal in doing a doctorate, but much of the appeal comes from the possibility of 2-5 more years of student life. Working full time for more than three years has definitely given me more appreciation for the lifestyle of students – cash-strapped though it may be.

Small nuclear reactors (SMRs)

Climate change definitely strengthens the case for nuclear power, but it is very hard to determine just how strong that case really is, particularly on economic grounds. Climate change does nothing to lessen the risks associated with accidents or nuclear proliferation, but it does represent some of the most significant risks associated with fossil fuel based forms of electricity generation.

Some of the major barriers to the deployment of new nuclear power plants are cost and long lead-in times. Construction can easily take a decade or more. One means by which both of those issues could potentially be addressed is through the use of small modular nuclear reactors. This is an approach being experimented with by a number of groups, including Russia’s state nuclear energy company (which is building a floating, towable nuclear power station) and firms like TerraPower, which has been enthusiastically endorsed by Bill Gates.

One of the most interesting possible uses for small nuclear reactors is as ‘drop-in’ replacements for the coal-burning parts of old power plants. Potentially, the heat source in a power plant could be switched from the combustion of coal to the fission of uranium, keeping most of the rest of the plant’s infrastructure in place. In particular, such converted plants could make use of existing transmission capacity.

I can’t say whether small nuclear reactors really are a more economical or appealing option overall, but it seems like a technology to watch as the world struggles to find ways to achieve carbon neutrality.