Enlaces 25.02.2014

La acción exterior española en un escenario energético en transformación, por Gonzalo Escribano

Resumen: Este documento explora primero la naturaleza de la interdependencia energética española en un sistema energético cambiante. A continuación, se analiza la evolución reciente de los principales vectores energéticos exteriores españoles, identificando sus vulnerabilidades y puntos fuertes en cada uno de los grandes objetivos que conforman la trinidad de fines energéticos europeos: seguridad, sostenibilidad y competitividad. Finalmente, se propone una reflexión sobre el conjunto de elementos con que cuenta la acción exterior española para abordar esa pluralidad de objetivos y sus respectivos dilemas.

Growing pains. Measure a country purely against its GDP and you neglect the wellbeing of its people. Yet can that be measured? By Diane Coyle. (Incluido en Culture).

Measuring GDP has grown increasingly complicated as the economy itself has become more complex. It is relatively easy to count how many more cars or computers are made and sold each year. In the mass assembly era, bigger numbers were a good measure of economic growth. But what about in the ‘new economy’, where the quality and power of products is increasing so dramatically? Should GDP count how many laptops are sold; or should it acknowledge their increased speed and storage, the built-in Wi-Fi and cameras, their lighter weight? GDP statistics now have very many complicated adjustments made to take account of quality enhancement. These so‑called ‘hedonic’ adjustments are made to a range of consumer electronic goods, but not to many other items counted in GDP – it does not capture the greater effectiveness of painkillers, energy-efficient light bulbs, ‘intelligent’ fabrics, or the much greater consumer choice across the board.

The Technium. A Conversation with Kevin Kelly.

People tend right now to think that the future of the Web is Web 2.0; it's like a better Web. I went back to the early issues of Wired and all the Time magazines and Newsweeks and the newspapers trying to find out what people thought the Web was going to be before it was. Generally, what people thought, including to some extent myself, was it was going to be better TV, like TV 2.0. That's what we thought the Web would be at first—5,000 different sources giving you the specialty information about a horse channel and a dog channel and a cat channel and a saltwater aquarium channel, all these things would be coming down, and they would be providing all this stuff, and you could get it all in your home. But, of course, that missed the entire real revolution of the Web, which was that most of the content would be generated by the people using it. The Web was not better TV, it was the Web.

1.783 razones para comer sin miedo maíz transgénico, por Jorge Alcalde.

No es, por ejemplo, el informe de 2013 de la revista Critical Reviews in Biotechnology en el que se analizaba toda la literatura científica disponible sobre alimentos modificados genéticamente en los últimos 10 años. Los expertos autores de este estudio analizaron 1.783 publicaciones. De ellas, 847 se referían al efecto de los transgénicos sobre el medio ambiente, 770 se centraron en los posibles peligros para la salud humana y animal y 166 eran comentarios y refutaciones a otros estudios. De todo ese material se extrajo la conclusión de que no es posible detectar un riesgo evidente derivado del uso de estos alimentos. El informe terminaba advirtiendo de la necesidad de mejorar la comunicación científica hacia el público general "resaltando la inocuidad de estos cultivos con el fin de generar el impacto que esta tecnología merece". Está claro que los medios europeos no lo leyeron.

Recuperación y reforma fiscal, por Daniel Lacalle.

España se está recuperando, aunque les moleste a algunos. Puede crecer mucho más, y debe. Tiene muchísimas debilidades y la mejora es frágil, pero eso no la anula. Tiene que profundizarse en permitir la creación de empleo de calidad a través del emprendimiento. Que lea un día "Spain is open for business" de verdad.