President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, when departing for the G-20 Summit in China from İstanbul Atatürk Airport on Friday, told reporters that the president is the head of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary in Turkey.
Responding to remarks made by main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who criticized the opening ceremony for the new judicial year at the presidential palace, Erdoğan said the comments were not appropriate for an opposition leader. “The [presidential] palace belongs to all state institutions, and all of them [the heads of the institutions] can use it for gatherings. The president is the head of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary in this country. What can we say to a person who doesn’t realize this?” Erdoğan said.
Nel mese di giugno si è toccato un traguardo simbolico: la produzione mensile di elettricità è stata coperta per il 50,5 per cento da fonti di energia rinnovabile. Era dagli anni Sessanta che non accadeva, ma rispetto ad allora il quadro è radicalmente cambiato. All’epoca era l’idroelettrico a farla da padrone e la produzione annua totale di energia elettrica era circa un terzo di quella attuale. Nei primi sei mesi del 2016, l’idroelettrico ha rappresentato il 39 per cento della produzione rinnovabile, seguito da fotovoltaico (21 per cento), eolico (19 per cento), biomasse (16 per cento) e il 5 per cento da geotermia. Questa rivoluzione certifica il successo della politica d’incentivi che ha fatto aumentare del 137 per cento la produzione elettrica da fonti di energia rinnovabile rispetto al 2000 e che ha consentito all’Italia di raggiungere l’obiettivo europeo al 2020 in anticipo di sei anni. È, tuttavia, inevitabile chiedersi se lo storico sorpasso sia il frutto della congiuntura oppure di cambiamenti strutturali. Sicuramente hanno contribuito la buona performance dell’idroelettrico, grazie a un mese di giugno relativamente piovoso (+22 per cento rispetto alla media 1971-2000), e la domanda elettrica ai minimi storici dopo il sesto calo consecutivo dall’inizio dell’anno.
Congiuntura o cambio di struttura?
In ottica strutturale, occorre distinguere le dinamiche lato offerta da quelle lato domanda. Sulle prime, dopo anni di copiosi investimenti (in tecnologie sia tradizionali sia rinnovabili), il sistema paese ha raggiunto una sovraccapacità di generazione. Nei prossimi anni gli investimenti si limiteranno a sostituire impianti obsoleti. Grazie anche alle politiche di sostegno messe in atto nel recente passato, le rinnovabili sono ormai tecnologie relativamente mature, in grado di competere liberamente sul mercato con le fonti tradizionali. Questo porta a pensare che la sostituzione di quelli obsoleti, tenuto conto degli impegni in materia di cambiamento climatico, dovrebbe favorire nuovi impianti di generazione da fonti di energia rinnovabile, anche in assenza di incentivi.
Dal lato domanda, invece, c’è da chiedersi se sia ragionevole pensare che i consumi elettrici si manterranno in futuro sui livelli attuali e cioè se le politiche di promozione dell’efficienza energetica saranno effettivamente in grado di stabilizzare la richiesta. Oggi, le cifre messe in campo sono meno della metà di quelle destinate alle rinnovabili: 1,3 miliardi annui circa per le detrazioni per la riqualificazione energetica e 900 milioni di certificati bianchi. Risorse comunque in grado di stimolare notevoli investimenti. Secondo i dati dell’Enea, dal 2007 sono stati effettuati interventi di riqualificazione energetica negli immobili di privati per 21,9 miliardi di euro.
E la politica energetica?
Le politiche di efficienza tendenzialmente dovrebbero avere ricadute positive sull’occupazione, in virtù di un moltiplicatore più elevato in termini di valore aggiunto e posti di lavoro del settore edilizio. Qualche dubbio sorge invece sulla loro efficacia rispetto al risparmio energetico. Le politiche si sono concentrate per lo più sulla riqualificazione di edifici privati, nonostante il settore domestico abbia contribuito in modo limitato rispetto al terziario alla crescita dei consumi. Concentrarsi sul settore edilizio significa agire sui consumi termici, oggi coperti prevalentemente dal gas naturale. Tuttavia, le cose potrebbero presto cambiare. Finora, infatti, la progressività della tariffa elettrica domestica e il contenimento della potenza contrattualmente impegnata hanno compresso artificialmente il ricorso all’energia elettrica.
La recente riforma della tariffa elettrica, rimuovendo le distorsioni tariffarie e rendendo più trasparenti i segnali di prezzo, pone le basi per una maggiore penetrazione del vettore elettrico anche per soddisfare i consumi termici, a discapito del gas naturale (su cui l’Italia ha investito molto, anche negli ultimi anni). La sostituzione, quindi, dovrebbe permettere un aumento dei consumi elettrici anche in una complessiva riduzione dei consumi energetici.
In questo contesto in continua evoluzione è particolarmente evidente la mancanza di una visione sistemica. Le politiche energetiche, climatiche, ambientali (e industriali?) non possono più essere affrontate in modo settoriale e con soluzioni di breve periodo. Risulta difficile definire “politica energetica” la continua successione di pezze normative approvate di volta in volta per coprire emergenze e contingenze. Non bastano di certo i tanti annunci di una nuova “Strategia energetica nazionale” o del “Green act”. Una legge, quest’ultima, analoga al Climate Change Act inglese o alla Energiewiende tedesca, che avrebbe dovuto mettere l’Italia all’avanguardia in campo ecologico, energetico e climatico. L’annuncio fu dato il 2 gennaio 2015 dal presidente del Consiglio; sono passati diciannove mesi, un nuovo accordo climatico è stato siglato a Parigi, ma della legge ancora nessuna traccia.
Almost everyone enjoys a bank holiday. A three-day weekend means more time to spend with family and friends, to go out and explore the world, and to relax from the pressures of working life. Imagine if, rather than a few times a year, we had a three-day weekend every week. This isn’t just a nice idea. Beyond the possibilities for leisure, three-day weekends might also be one of the easiest steps we could take to radically reduce our environmental impact – and future-proof our economy.
A reduction in working hours generally correlates with marked reductions in energy consumption, as economists David Rosnick and Mark Weisbrot have argued. In fact, if Americans simply followed European levels of working hours, for example, they would see an estimated 20% reduction in energy use – and hence in carbon emissions.
With a four-day week, huge amounts of commuting to and from work could be avoided, as well as the energy outputs from running workplaces. At a point when we need to massively cut back our carbon outputs, instituting a three-day weekend could be the simplest and most elegant way to make our economy more environmentally friendly.
It’s happened before. For example, in 2007 the US state of Utah redefined the working week for state employees, with extended hours on Monday to Thursday meaning it could eliminate Fridays entirely. In its first ten months, the move saved the state at least US$1.8m (£1.36m) in energy costs. Fewer working days meant less office lighting, less air conditioning and less time spent running computers and other equipment – all without even reducing the total number of hours worked.
For one day a week, thousands of commuters were able to stay at home. If the reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions from travel were included, the state estimated a saving of more than 12,000 tons of CO2 each year.
Utah abandoned the experiment in 2011 after residents complained they were unable to access services on Fridays. It seems this sort of change has to be accompanied by a shift in our expectations so that Friday becomes a “third weekend” rather than simply a weekday without work. What Utah does show is that, replicated across an entire country, a four day week would see substantial progress towards an economy that does less damage to the environment.
Yet there would be other benefits too. Working less would improve the elusive “work/life balance”, and help to restore our mental health and physical well-being. It would also give us more time to spend on social activities, to care for children and the elderly, and to engage with our communities. Experiments with reduced working hours at select workplaces in Sweden in 2015 reduced sickness and even increased productivity.
Directing gains in economic efficiency towards increased free time and reduced energy consumption, rather than making more stuff, could create a better and more environmentally safe world.
As anthropologist David Graeber has recently contended, many of us work jobs that, at least partially, seem pointless. Indeed, economists have long been aware of the redundant hours contained in many working days, with employees effectively under-utilised in their workplaces, yet unable to leave due to the persistent issue of “presenteeism” – where workers are valued by managers for hours logged in the office rather than productivity. Rather than work longer hours for little productive benefit, we could embrace a shorter working week and help save our planet and our own well-being.
An obvious objection might be: “How could we afford this?” But there are serious economic and technological reasons for why governments, political parties, think tanks and social movements should all start to think about advocating for the implementation of three-day weekends.
Looking more into the long-term, a new wave of workplace automation featuring advanced robotics and machine learning systems is predicted to replace 47% of current jobs in the US in coming decades, and 54% in Europe. In these circumstances, where there will be significantly less work available, instituting policies such as three-day weekends becomes essential to make life liveable under these changed economic conditions.
As Nick Srnicek and I have argued in our book Inventing the Future, automation will soon offer us the prospect of a very different world of work. More automation would make many production processes more efficient, using less energy and less human labour until, eventually, we are largely freed from work.
The key to capturing the benefits of automation without drastic social dislocation depends in part on developing policies which work to share the gains. This means a reduced working week thanks to an extended weekend, together with a universal basic income.
None of this will happen overnight. But, if you’re in the UK and are lucky enough to have Monday off, don’t forget that extra day at home or in the park is not only fun but will help fight climate change.
"C'est avec regret et tristesse que nous annonçons à nos lecteurs la fin de la parution papier et Internet de Zaman France. La violence du climat politique actuel en Turquie et la tournure inquiétante qu'ont prise les événements ne permettent plus, en effet, à notre rédaction d'accomplir correctement son travail journalistique au vu des risques sécuritaires grandissants qui pèsent actuellement sur nos abonnés et nos lecteurs, ainsi que ceux qui frappent plus spécifiquement les membres de la rédaction de Zaman France."
Update
"The Turkish-language Zaman newspaper has decided to halt its operations in Germany after its readers received threats over their subscriptions to the paper, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported on Friday.
“Our subscribers are being visited; they are being threatened that if they continue to subscribe, they will have problems,” Süleyman Bağ, an executive at the paper, told DW.
Bağ was further quoted as saying that the current situation in Turkey, where the government is carrying out a wide-ranging media purge, was spilling over into Germany.
It is not yet known whether the newspaper will maintain its online edition.
The Zaman French and Belgian newspapers had earlier stopped publishing due to threats."
When it comes to its electoral strategy, it's not often that a presidential campaign gives the game away so easily. This week, new Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway did it twice. Last Sunday, she personally confirmed that Donald Trump's laughable outreach to black voters wasn't intended for African Americans at all. "I live in a white community," Conway explained, "I'm white. I was very moved by his comment." Just three days later, she insisted her losing candidate was actually winning, all thanks to what she branded "the hidden Trump voter in the country." Claiming their numbers are "very significant," Ms. Conway suggested the campaign's "Undercover Trump Voter" project would help these appalled or ashamed suburban whites overcome the social stigma of publicly backing the irredeemably racist Republican nominee:
"Donald Trump performs consistently better in online polling where a human being is not talking to another human being about what he or she may do in the election. It's because it's become socially desirable, if you're a college educated person in the United States of America, to say that you're against Donald Trump."
These supposed undercover Trump voters, in other words, are simply too embarrassed to acknowledge they support The Donald. But while they feel compelled to lie to pollsters now, on November 8 their secret ballots will power Trump to a shocking upset victory.
If this formula sounds vaguely familiar, it should. That's because back in the early 1990s political scientists, pundits, and the press proclaimed the existence of the "Bradley Effect" in which some white voters would lie to survey takers (and even themselves) about supporting a black candidate only to mark the ballot for his or her white opponent on Election Day. The Trump campaign, it now appears, is counting on the reverse dynamic to save it in November.
As you may recall, the Bradley Effect got its name from Tom Bradley, the former mayor of Los Angeles. In his 1982 California gubernatorial race, he consistently led Republican George Deukmejian. As former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder explained four years ago:
On the eve of the election, polls anointed him a prohibitive favorite. But on Election Day, Bradley lost to his white opponent, Republican George Deukmejian."
Post-election analysis showed that white voters had cast ballots for Bradley in far smaller numbers than polling suggested. Meanwhile, the votes of the avowed "undecideds" fell in a cascading wave for Deukmejian.
This almost happened to me. Voter surveys immediately before my 1989 election as Virginia governor showed me leading my Republican opponent by almost 10 points. Some showed an even larger lead.
Like David Dinkins in New York City, Wilder only eked out a victory by one-half of a percentage point. But unlike Bradley, Wilder was prepared. "My campaign knew better, however," he pointed out in 2012. "Our internal polls always showed the race to be a statistical dead heat."
Four years later, Donald Trump and his water carriers are hoping for a repeat of the Bradley experience, but in reverse.
Just one day before Trump's campaign manager Conway unveiled her magic unicorn theory of The Donald's path to victory, campaign CEO Stephen Bannon's friends at Breitbart ran this headline: "EXCLUSIVE: Former Tom Bradley Aide Says Secret Trump Voters Similar to 'Bradley Effect.'"
Emerson College Professor Gregory Payne tells Breitbart News that after witnessing the actual Bradley Effect while working on that campaign, he sees the same phenomenon in the 2016 with voters reluctant to tell pollsters they support GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Trump backers began getting their hopes up last year. First, In May 2015 the Pew Research Center published the results of a survey examining "From Telephone to the Web: The Challenge of Mode of Interview Effects in Public Opinion Polls." The study found "that differences in responses by survey mode are fairly common, but typically not large, with a mean difference of 5.5 percentage points and a median difference of five points across the 60 questions." Those deltas were larger on the phone regarding "societal discrimination against several different groups" and online when respondents were asked to "give various political figures a 'very unfavorable' rating." As Pew explained:
The social interaction inherent in a telephone or in-person interview may also exert subtle pressures on respondents that affect how they answer questions. Respondents may feel a need to present themselves in a more positive light to an interviewer, leading to an overstatement of socially desirable behaviors and attitudes and an understatement of opinions and behaviors they fear would elicit disapproval from another person. Previous research has shown that respondents understate such activities as drug and alcohol use and overstate activities like donating to charity or helping other people. This phenomenon is often referred to as "social desirability bias." These effects may be stronger among certain types of people than others, introducing additional bias into the results.
Then in December, Morning Consult did its own research with 2,400 Republicans (one-third interviewed, one-third completed an online survey, and one-third taking an automated phone survey) and concluded "Donald Trump Performs Better in Online Polling." As they summed it up, "Republicans are more likely to say they want Donald Trump in the White House if they are taking a poll online versus in a live telephone interview. And, if you're a highly-educated or engaged Republican voter, it turns out that you're far less likely to tell another human being you want Trump as president." Trump earned the support of 38 percent of online respondents, compared to 36 percent completing the automated phone survey and 32 percent personally interviewed by phone. But The Donald performed much worse with a live interviewer if the respondent had some college education:
Among adults with a bachelor's degree or postgraduate degree, Trump performs about 10 percentage points better online than via live telephone. And, among adults with some college, Trump performs more than 10 percentage points better online. Conversely, Republicans with a high school education or less favored Trump on the phone over online...
What explains Trump's worse numbers on the phone? One possible explanation is "social desirability bias," or in other words, people being reluctant to select Trump when talking to another person because they do not believe it will be viewed as a socially acceptable decision.
That's the very script Kellyanne Conway was offering reporters this week. Republican California Rep. Duncan Hunter was probably thinking along the same lines when he proclaimed in February that "I think you have more Trump supporters in Congress. They just have to come out of the closet, so to speak." And in June, Donald Trump himself proclaimed that when it comes to the Bradley Effect, orange is the new black:
"When I poll, I do fine, but when I run I do much better. In other words, people say I'm not going to say who I'm voting for, don't be embarrassed, I'm not going to say who I'm voting for and then they get it and I do much better, it's like an amazing effect."
Unfortunately for Donald Trump and company, there are a lot of problems with their reverse Bradley Effect dream. As we'll see below, primary contests and general elections are not the same. Recent history provides another red flag, as fans of John McCain and Mitt Romney learned to their great disappointment.
Oh, and one other thing: By most accounts, the Bradley Effect no longer exists.
