Taboo of the 21st century

Carbon dioxide became recently the victim of political correctness. Taking into account the row between Warsaw and Brussels about CO2 emission limits, I am beginning to wonder where the ocean of involved hypocrisy ends.
I started to feel uneasy, when I saw The Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Later the movie won the Academy Award, and subsequently Al Gore received... the Nobel Peace Prize. I had serious reservations concerning the laureates chosen by Norwegian Nobel Committee, and award for the piece of cinematography.
The assumption that CO2 is a form of pollution is somewhat flawed for me. It is not a toxic gas, but a permanent component of the atmosphere. Carbon content in the air oscillated largely over the long periods of time - the last increase over recent 50 years is correlated with a global warming, that's for sure, but over the recent millennium it is difficult to find a stable relation. Decades of growth preceded years of slump. Yes, we should talk about CO2 caps and taxation to restrict the emission - but we need to discuss that in terms of economy and sustainable growth. We can not allow a bunch of radicals to threaten the socio-economic growth by killing industries, like coal gasification for one example. That is commendable that EC is working on a solution to tax carbon emission induced by automotive industry as long as its aim is to boost innovative technologies, and not to harm customers and therefore also car makers.
Polish CO2 emission in 1989 - the beginning of economic transition - amounts to some 500 MMT. Nine years later it was 330 MMT, and in 2006 - 210 MMT. And still, the Greens attacked the government that the direction is not proper, because in 2005 the total amount of CO2 discharged to the atmosphere was 4 MMT lower... That is ridiculous. The Economist issued on March 15 published interesting data showing that in years 1996-2005 environmental taxes as a share of total tax receipts in Poland increased by 1.52 percentage point, far more than in Germany, Holland or Denmark. The same indicator for UK, USA, Canada Spain and France showed even a negative rate. Why then it is Central Europe blamed for not complying to environmental targets? Is it a sheer hypocrisy or something else?

Posted at polarwombat.wordpress.com on March 30, 2008.

White summit, black economy

On Wednesday, March 19th, the White Summit of medical professionals and the government finally came to an end after two months of futile discussions. The summit was conceived to elaborate some common resolutions, acceptable by the government, and capable of solving at least a couple of major challenges that Polish healthcare system faces. Some of the recommendations do not raise any objections. Why the summit turned out to be a failure then?
The parties addressed 4 major areas: legal status of the "independent healthcare facilities" (mostly hospitals), finance sources, patient empowerment and human resources. Views at many topics were common for partners: that hospitals should become companies regulated by the commercial law (however, unions raised concerns about prospective privatization), that public and private entities should be equally treated by the public payer, that public hospitals should be allowed to contract medical services privately provided that that would not lengthen waiting lists, that farmers should pay health insurance premiums on general principles and so on. Labour unions raised their doubts about private health insurance.
The Prime Minister ruled out the very idea of patient co-payment, rejected many of the submitted demands on a charge that professional groups are attempting to make their own deals, what caused split among the signatories of the final document. Physicians refused to take part in proceeding with drafts submitted by the government. The agreement fell apart. Donald Tusk announced that the government would increase compulsory health insurance premium by one percentage point. End of the long-announced reform?

Posted at polarwombat.wordpress.com on March 20, 2008.

Party of questionable intelligentsia

Jarosław Kaczyński set for the Law and Justice (PiS) party a new target: to regain support of intellectuals. Well, not all of them, but these acknowledging the crisis of Polish national identity are welcome. A great challenge, indeed, but I don't expect him to be successful: Mr Kaczyński's political views makes him an epigone of traditional nationalism that had enormous merits in winning independence for Poland in 1918, but is now long obsolete.
On May 1 PiS organized a congress entitled Polish intelligentsia and public life after elections to mark the first stage of recovering from populism, but the event turned out to be a pathetic failure.
The party started to build a new, conservative intelligentsia by not inviting Adam Michnik for the anniversary of civil strife in March 1918. Apparently, Kaczyński&Co decided to re-interpret Polish history, like in 1984 by Orwell. The ceremony held in the Presidential Palace has been obscured by the absence of Mr Michnik, a standard bearer of students' movement then.

Posted at polarwombat.wordpress.com on March 7, 2008.

The Balkan pot, it is boiling again

On February 17 a new small and poor state appeared on the Balkan map. Since then, this feeble entity managed to stir up international community and ruthlessly exposed EU weakness where common foreign policy is required. One should expect that it is only the beginning of trouble caused by Kosovo, the state capable of becoming a seedbed of separatism and organized crime in Europe.
Albanians compose 90% of Kosovo population - not always it was like that, even after World War II Serbs dominated the province. For them Kosovo is still a unique category for national identity - in 1389 Turks routed allied Serb and Bosnian army during the epic Battle of Kosovo, putting an end to Serbian independence for some 500 years. For Serbs Battle of Kosovo remain the key for self-recognition, like Grunwald for Poles or Gettysburg for Americans.

More at polarwombat.wordpress.com. Posted on March 10, 2008.