If you do an online search for the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894, you will find some exquisitely written, but ultimately nauseating, passages about the grim and potentially deadly pollution of the period.
They describe how the sheer volume of horses required to run city transportation in Europe and North America at that time had led to the streets being “literally carpeted with a warm, brown matting … smelling to heaven”.
That gem of a line is from The New Yorker magazine, by the way.
It is claimed that The Times newspaper of the day made the following prediction in print: “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”
Of course, we never discovered if they would prove to be correct as the motor car usurped the horse in the 20th century.
There is also some debate among historians about the actual extent of the crisis. The manure problem may have been exaggerated, and there is also the suggestion that the deeper cost of the reliance on horse-drawn transportation was the need to maintain a large-scale agricultural industry geared towards keeping the animals fed, which was an inefficient use of land and resources.
In any case, early motor cars were marketed as a “cleaner” alternative to literal horsepower. Yet cars have played a part in fuelling our current environmental crisis and, as the world tries to work together to limit global warming caused by greenhouse gases, we are searching for a solution to the pollution caused by cars.
How quickly will the electric car put the internal combustion engine out to pasture? The trend indicates it may be sooner than expected
In Europe and the US, consumption of petrol and diesel fuel in the transportation sector is a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions.
Transport was responsible for about a quarter of the EU’s total CO2 emissions in 2019, of which 71.7 per cent came from road transportation. In the US, cars accounted for about 30 per cent of total CO2 emissions last year. Globally, the emissions produced by passenger cars have been steadily rising over the past 20 years in particular.
Obviously, no one predicted the above outcome way back in the 19th century or even the early 20th century.
In our current climate emergency, the electrification of transport and the phasing out of the internal combustion engine that saved us more than a century ago are now being put forward as the solutions to our petrol and diesel driven woes.
How quickly will the electric car put the internal combustion engine out to pasture? The trend indicates it may be sooner than expected. Already, global sales of petrol and diesel cars have peaked and growth is now led entirely by electric vehicles.
According to a Bloomberg Green analysis of adoption rates around the world, 24 countries have passed 5 per cent of new car sales powered only by electricity.
The 5 per cent threshold signals the start of mass adoption. Canada, Australia, Spain, Thailand and Hungary as well as the US, China and most of Western Europe help make up the 24 who have crossed it.
IDC, a market intelligence provider, is forecasting 14 million units to be sold worldwide in 2023 – about 18 per cent of the overall market. Autonomous driving technology will also accelerate this going forward, IDC said.
While car makers might be pleased with themselves, I cannot but help think of the people of 1894 and what they could not know – and I wonder what it is we, in 2023, also do not understand about the choices we are making.
Global warming, greenhouse gas emissions and the melting polar ice caps were not part of 19th-century thinking. So, the motor car being presented as the answer to their horse-driven problem would have seemed like an elegant solution. It only served to kick the can down the very long road to the 21st century and we now know the impact of embracing the internal combustion engine.
It is, of course, not as simple as that. Motorisation has brought many benefits too. Yet we are now being advised that EVs can help alleviate our modern pollution crisis. Of course there will be benefits from this.
However, we should also ask how EVs might bring us more problems in the future that could put our lives at risk.
The first thought is about resources and that despite not being a gas guzzler, an electric car needs to consume other things. For example, each EV needs graphite, cobalt and lithium for its batteries.
Reuters reported in June that manufacturers, including Tesla and Mercedes, were seeking graphite supply from outside China, which is the dominant producer. New graphite producers, such as Madagascar and Mozambique, are set to emerge as powers in this sector.
The consequences of such developments could be myriad and both negative and positive. Could a race for such resources cause more conflict while creating wealth for generations? Definitely.
Could the widespread use of electric cars help usher in a new and bigger crisis than global warming? You don’t need to hear it from the horse’s mouth to know the answer to that question. Yes, it very well could.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Manchester United v Club America
When: Thursday, 9pm Arizona time (Friday UAE, 8am)
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
The five pillars of Islam
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The biog
Name: Abeer Al Bah
Born: 1972
Husband: Emirati lawyer Salem Bin Sahoo, since 1992
Children: Soud, born 1993, lawyer; Obaid, born 1994, deceased; four other boys and one girl, three months old
Education: BA in Elementary Education, worked for five years in a Dubai school
Dubai Rugby Sevens, December 5 -7
World Sevens Series Pools
A – Fiji, France, Argentina, Japan
B – United States, Australia, Scotland, Ireland
C – New Zealand, Samoa, Canada, Wales
D – South Africa, England, Spain, Kenya
Duterte Harry: Fire and Fury in the Philippines
Jonathan Miller, Scribe Publications
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE results
Lost to Oman by eight runs
Beat Namibia by three wickets
Lost to Oman by 12 runs
Beat Namibia by 43 runs
UAE fixtures
Free admission. All fixtures broadcast live on icc.tv
Tuesday March 15, v PNG at Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Friday March 18, v Nepal at Dubai International Stadium
Saturday March 19, v PNG at Dubai International Stadium
Monday March 21, v Nepal at Dubai International Stadium
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
