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If you happen to pick up a copy, do yourself a favour and read Brad DeLong’s take first (via Paul Krugman). As Krugman says: “in this crucial chapter, there’s an average of one statement per page that’s either flatly untrue or deeply misleading”. (More on the topic from Krugman)

Reader beware…

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For those that don’t know, world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen December this year to discuss climate change and their responses to it.

So far we have seen very little from world leaders in terms of real, concrete targets and changes. There is a lot of hope (though dare I say not a lot of expectation) that the Copenhagen talks will result in an updated global agreement that reflects the severity of the situation as outlined by the scientific and economic communities (although Obama’s recent executive order is a positive sign).

It seems that governments the world over are having a deal of trouble committing to targets that are decades away. But I suspect this is part of the problem – the focus on decade long cycles (e.g. “25% by 2020″) needs to shift binding 1 and 5 year targets and plans as well. Whilever plans focus on 10 or 20 years away, action will not be swift. Let’s reduce by 1% this year, an addition 2% next year and soon the totals will add up to the 25%+ that we need to achieve.

To most people it is clear that societally we need to rapidly (i.e. over the next 10 years) reduce carbon emissions across the globe. It is also clear that the costs of acting now will be much lower than later.

To put this into perspective, WWF-Australia recently teamed up with Climate Risk to produce an estimate that places the cost of transforming to a low-carbon economy in Australia at half the cost of the recent economic stimulus package – if we act now. If we allow the amount of carbon in the atmosphere to reach potentially catastrophic levels, the cost will be far, far greater.

Our government and business leaders know this. There is popular support for action. And yet things are still stalled…

What we do know

While there are a lot of unknowns, and acknowledging there is no “silver bullet” solution to reducing carbon emissions, there are a few things that are already underway and with further support will make a significant impact on our emissions.

Renewable energy

Renewable energy systems need to be developed and rapidly deployed to offset coal-based generation. So-called “clean coal” is not a long-term solution, yet it has a medium-term development cycle – the case just doesn’t stack up (you might consider joining GetUp’s “iCoal 2.0″ campaign to let our politicians know we know).

Investment needs to be channelled to existing and emerging technologies such as wind, solar, and wave energy. Report after report shows how these, existing, technologies can service our needs. Google has stated that more early stage funding is required. But of course there are myriad ways the government could be supporting the industry – a “real” emissions trading scheme (one that doesn’t let big polluters off the hook) or feed in tariffs are a good start. But even better support for R&D in the area would be welcome.

Alternative fuel vehicles

Alternative fuel vehicles – especially electric vehicles powered by renewable energy – will play a significant role in the short-term transformation of mobility towards low-carbon goals.

It seems that the market has landed on electric vehicles – with the Tesla roadster launched and the Model S on the way in 2011, GM launching the Volt in 2010, followed hotly by the Nissan LEAF late 2012. Nissan’s concept is interesting as they plan to lease the battery – the most expensive component in electric vehicles – to reduce the up-front cost of the technology for buyers.

And of course A Better Place has a novel concept that they hope to launch in Australia, among other countries, soon.

There are longer-term solutions, including re-thinking our cities, something that City of Sydney council seems to be making a lot of noise about with their 2030 Sustainable Sydney plan. But in the short-term cars will be the transport option of choice for many people as our existing infrastructure is geared to best support this mode of mobility.

Energy efficiency

Energy prices will inevitibly increase over time – if not through government levies through geo-political and other factors. In addition, a shift to renewable energy will to an extent require us to be more efficient with our use of energy.

But being more efficient now can also have a significant positive impact by reducing consumption, or maintaining current levels of consumption as population grows, reducing the need for new capacity while new renewable energy capacity enters the mix and some emerging technologies gain a footing.

This is where individual action can make a big difference – if we all choose more efficient appliances, upgrade to more efficient lighting technology, and the like can reduce the need for new capacity, as well as reducing our bills.

Collective action

Over the past few years there’s been a lot of emphasis on individual action – in us as “consumers” playing our part in creating demand and making lifestyle changes. While individual action is important, this will only get us so far.

We need our leaders in government and industry to truly step up to the mark. This is why the Copenhagen agreement is so critical. There will be many, many actions that can be taken in the lead up to the Copenhagen talks – but on this Blog Action Day can I suggest writing or speaking to your federal government representative (you can user OpenAustralia to find out who your rep is) and telling them how important this issue is. Outline the ways that you’re doing your bit, and put forward your ideas about how you want the government to do theirs.

If that’s too much, consider casting your vote with EarthHour, or support an environmentally-focused non-profit who is doing good work in the area.

In either case, let’s give our political leaders the support they need to ensure that we get the right result at Copenhagen.

These links come from my Delicious feed.

These links come from my Delicious feed.

The first is that a scheme will raise prices for the Australian public for goods from high-emissions industries, like electricity. I suspect this is to raise public opposition to the scheme, but I think that we’ve mostly overcome this objection.

The second seems to be that the scheme will negatively impact exports for these products, which in Australia will have a significant impact on exports. An extension to this argument is that producers in countries that don’t have such impediments will be able to undercut the price of Australian companies’ produce.

Over the jump I’ve put together some initial thoughts on these objections and the Government’s proposed approach…

(First a disclaimer – I haven’t studied politics, economics or carbon trading – so my ignorance of these issues might show through in the following comments. However, I wanted to post them to get my own thoughts clearer, but also in in the hope that some more learned folks might be able to fill in any gaps and improve my understanding of the issues and approaches.)

Local prices

To my mind, the answer to the first objection is to provide gradually decreasing concessions to consumers of these products in the early years while companies adjust their offerings to greener alternatives. My thinking is that by targeting these concessions at consumers, competition among companies will occur sooner as companies that take early mover advantage will benefit from higher market prices and emissions-trading benefits for investments made during the adjustment period.

If such concessions were directed at the company level, I see less incentive for businesses to innovate, as they won’t receive any immediate benefit for doing so. (This assertion is based on a layman’s understanding of economics – I’d be interested in hearing from anyone with a deeper understanding.)

Let me provide two contrasting examples to illustrate my point:

Concessions to consumers

Company A and Company B both start with the same emissions output. The government puts in place a permits scheme where both companies have to pay for the emissions they produce, and they (naturally) pass this cost onto consumers. To offset this increased cost, the government subsidises the consumers through tax concessions or some form of rebate scheme, reducing the concession over time until eventually the full cost is borne by the consumer.

In a competitive market, the prices charged by Company A and B would be comparable. So if, say, Company B introduces an innovation that reduces their emissions (and therefore creates emissions permits that can be traded for $$) sooner than Company B, they can continue to charge the higher market rate to consumers – effectively cashing in twice (once through traded permits, and again through charging higher prices). If they are able to introduce these innovations in a manner that also reduces their operating cost over time there is a third incentive for innovation.

As the industry adapts, this competitive advantage is reduced returning to comodity pricing, but we’ll have more sustainable technologies in use – the primary aim of the trading scheme.

Concessions for industry

If, however, the concessions are leveled at the company level in the form of “free” permits as proposed by the Government, there is little incentive for individual companies to change their behaviour early. Whilst companies that do make the investment or innovate can trade the certificates, most companies that would be interested in trading have also received free permits so there is a limited (or deflated) market for the permits.

Using the same example: Company A and Company B both start with the same emissions output. The Government grants both companies free permits to a total of 90% of their emissions (charging for 10%) and reduce this concession over a number of years. Consumers are presumably charged incrementally higher prices as the concession reduces (and additional costs charged by the companies increases accordingly) over time.

If Company B reduces emissions quickly they can trade with other companies the permits they’ve received, pocketing the $$. However, as most other companies in emissions-intensive industries have also received free permits, the market is less competitive. (In the longer-term if companies don’t reduce their emissions the market will grow more competitive as they scramble to purchase cheaper permits on the market. But initially it will be less competitive to my interpretation.)

If many companies in the market are slow to move to reduce emissions (given they’re not paying much for the privilege of emitting) the costs of retooling are unfairly borne by early movers – i.e. they have to increase their prices while others in the market remain stagnant with little opportunity to recoup investment through the emissions-trading market, creating a temporary advantage for the laggards – the opposite result to the consumer-concession model where early movers receive the early benefits.

It strikes me that this model simply serves to delay action. Perhaps I’m missing something?

International competitiveness

Both of these models address the first issue outlined at the start of this post – that is domestic demand for emissions-intensive products. But it’s clear that many of the emissions-intensive industries are export-driven, which presents a dilemma.

The most common objection I’ve seen on these grounds is that a company in another country that does not have emissions-related levys (either through taxes or trading schemes) can undercut companies from countries that do apply such charges. This would adversely affect exports.

Note that this argument doesn’t look at exporters in other countries supplying the domestic market – the WTO has indicated that Governments may apply duties to imported goods that do not have the same burden as local industries on the grounds of environmental protection (a very good bit of news I might add) – more on this from Paul Krugman (1, 2).

But if those industries are competing on the international market for export sales, non-levied companies can still undercut Australian corporations, reducing our export performance.

I have to admit that I’ve not seen any adequate commentary on how this likely outcome would be best addressed – but I suspect this is where concessions provided directly to business make more sense, economically speaking.

Given the emphasis given politically, in the financial markets, and subsequently in the media, on our resources exports, I wonder if there are measures other than concessions direct to companies that would help offset the short-term hit to exports? Does anyone have more ideas/experience in this area? I’d be interested to learn more…

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I’ve just finished uploading and captioning on Flickr the few photos I took while in Hong Kong.

For some reason I felt really self-conscious about taking photos on the trip, so most of them are taken on the one “tourist” day I did, when I went to Lantau Island to see the cable car, Big Buddha, Po Lin temple and the Tai O fishing village.

Thankfully some other folks have taken some great shots of the other interesting things I saw, like Man Mo temple, the Peak, Tsim Sha Tsui at night and the experience of catching the MTR rail service.

I’m still waiting for Google Street View to launch in Hong Kong to see if they snapped me as the Google car rolled past. Might be the most fortuitous holiday snap of them all…

Over the jump is my first impressions of the Novation, specifically as used with Ableton Live…

My understanding is that Novation is a well-respected brand in the space, and I’d seen reference in Ableton marketing cruft that Live, the main digital audio recording and performance system I use, supported the SL series. In fact, Novation ship the SLs with the Lite version of Live in the box.

Automap

Having been spoiled by Live’s incredibly intuitive “MIDI-learn” functionality over the past few years, at first I didn’t really see the benefit of Automap, the supposedly “ground-breaking” system that Novation ship with the unit – as it seemed to do much the same thing for MIDI learn/controller mapping that Live’s been doing for some time.

But after reading the manual I started to see some real benefits, even when used with Live. Especially useful was the dynamic switching of controls on the SL mk II device depending on which plug-in currently had focus in Live.

So I installed the system and followed the Novation supplied instructions for getting things up and running with Live.

However, my interest and excitement was soon dampened. It seemed the only way I could get Live to work was in non-Automap mode. Much digging and frustration ensued as I tried to work out what I was doing wrong.

After a good few hours I finally pieced together the awful truth – that is: Automap mode does not work with Live. Period. This is about as clear as the directions on Novations site get: “The Ableton template must be selected on the SL MkII when using it in Ableton Live Automap mode.”

When I read this I thought that Ableton worked in Automap mode. It doesn’t. What this actually means is that to work with Live, you have to switch the unit into Advanced mode and use the special Ableton template on the device to control Live “out of the box”. Confused? I was too – took me about 4 hours of fussing about to work out what that actually meant in practice…

After some further digging, I discovered that Novation have worked with Ableton to set up hard-coded (read: uneditable) templates within the device to enable enhanced control of the software (where the software can talk to the device and vice versa, over and above plain MIDI controller messages). This means that while in Live you have to turn the Automap feature off, and then turn it on again when you select specific plugins to take advantage of the plug-in specific Automap features.

So, in the interest of clarity – to select the “Ableton Automap template”, as suggested in Novations notes, you need to:

1. Open up Live (with or without the Automap software)
2. Press the “Automap” button on the device so it is unlit (i.e. in Advanced mode)
3. Press down on the top “Template” select rotary control
4. Use the page up/down buttons on the device to select the page that has “Ableton” as the last template on the page
5. Click the button below the continuous pot to select the “Ableton” template

At this point the Ableton “special” template is selected. Once you’ve done this you can then reset the trigger pad note numbers according to Novation’s directions to get them to work with Impulse, the default drum sample instrument that ships with Live (another setting that I would have expected to just work out of the box – the note mappings have been the same for years, there’s really no excuse for such an oversight, especially given there’s been a firmware update since the unit was released where this presumably could have been fixed).

The default template

While the default Ableton template may be set up to some sane defaults, the lack of flexibility really had me chafing – I like to be able to flexibly assign controllers for specific songs based on the performance requirements. With the default template enabled, I couldn’t readily re-assign controls on the device to different parameters in Live – many of them seem to get “confused”, where the default setting competes with the MIDI learn settings, resulting in controls that simply don’t work when not used for their Ableton/Novation-designated function.

MIDI mapping

So I tried to use Automap to create my own MIDI template, essentially using Live’s built-in MIDI learn functions and ignoring some of the special features that Automap provides. Essentially, then, the Automap software would act as a simple external MIDI device and control Live using standard MIDI messages rather than the custom control set created by the manufacturers.

While I had some success with this approach for the basic controls (faders and rotary pots etc.), I wasn’t able to get the triggers working at all in this mode. It seemed the Automap software simply ignored the triggers, rendering one of the key controls of the device (one that I need) useless.

As a last stab I decided to set up a straight Advanced template which sends plain-vanilla MIDI messages from the unit to Live, bypassing the Automap software altogether. However I found that every time I changed a MIDI map in Live, the unit would revert back to the special Novation/Ableton assigned template.

I eventually nutted out the preference settings to stop Live from triggering the unit to switch into the Ableton template, and instead leave my settings the way I set them up.

While I don’t have the features of Automap available, I can at least get on to the actual act of playing and performing without Automap’s failings getting in the way. Now that I have this setup I’ll probably uninstall Automap altogether as it provides very little benefit under this configuration.

Too clever for its own good

While I now have a (mostly) working and fully mapped MIDI controller, after more than 4 hours of mucking about. There are two things that most annoy me about the whole experience:

1. Novation do not clearly state in any one of many locations that Automap simply doesn’t work with Live. Had they stated this clearly and plainly in one of the many help notes, or even in the downloadable PDF manual (I eventually discovered a reference in the manual stating something along these lines, but still with unclear directions on how to actually set things up and use the unit with Live) it would have saved a lot of hassle.
2. The Automap software and “cleverness” of Novation/Ableton in setting up the “special” template for Live actually got in the way of getting the unit to work in even its most basic/manual “Advanced” mode. I could have saved a good hour or so had they just left the Ableton template like any other template in the system and not automagically switched it into focus. Or they could have provided clear documentation on either website as to how to disable this functionality.

The verdict

Overall the experience has been less than stellar. While the hardware seems great – it feels great to play and I love the breadth of controls available, although had very little time to actually use them so far – its quality is well overshadowed by problematic software and support. (I should note that I placed a support request last weekend, and have still yet to receive a response from Novation – over 7 days later.)

If you are a) using Ableton Live or Reason (same issue applies there) and b) not very comfortable with manually setting up MIDI control maps, I would definitely avoid the Novation/Ableton combination.

However, if you are comfortable with playing with such shenanigans, I hope the information provided here clarifies what is a very murky topic in terms of Novation’s and Ableton’s support and helps you avoid the frustrations I’ve experienced.

Update: quite literally seconds after I posted this a reply on the forum post I link to above brings the news that with the latest beta of Automap Novation have now fixed this for Reason. Let’s hope a fix for Live is not too far away…

Update 2: another thing I meant to mention was that it seems the triggers aren’t as responsive – I’ve had some issues when playing two triggers simultaneously with only one message being received by Live, whereas the M-Audio has been working fine under the same circumstances…

Update 3: nine days after my initial query, I got a response from Novation support. They were able to shed some light on the trigger pad issue I was experiencing:

When in Automap mode, the drum pads are assigned by default to Port U3 and channel 16 because these are the port and channel settings in which the SL Mk II communicates with the Automap server. In order to send standard midi note messages to Live, you will need to edit each drum pad to send out the data on the port and channel you wish to transmit the data on, and then save the changes you have made by pressing “write” on the controller.

I think this means I can actually setup Automap to run using Automap MIDI for Ableton live after all, which may be an option moving forward. I’ll still be running my custom Advanced template for my gig tonight though…