Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I was reading an interesting article, paywalled sadly, called “Detecting Novel Associations in Large Data Sets“, by David N. Reshef et al. It describes a subtle method for detecting relationships in datasets. Their method is called “MIC” for maximal information coefficient. The MIC coefficient measures the strength of the association of the two datasets. A value of 1 indicates a very close association, while a value of 0 means random noise. Their MIC coefficient outperforms traditional indicators for a range of complex non-linear types of relationships, including sinusoidal, circular, and multiple additive relationships. This is because it makes no assumptions about the shape or form of the association. It’s a fascinating method, one I want to learn more about.
One of their test cases involved looking for a relationship between a range of global indicators. Here is a list of their results, sorted by MIC.
Figure 1. Significant associations as indicated by the maximal information coefficient. Traditionally, the association would be measured by the Pearson coefficient.
The odd one out in this list is MIC rank 3, the association between oil consumption per person and income per person. The Pearson rank of this one was 207, while the MIC rank was 3. So I was motivated to take another look at the question of energy and development.
To do so, I used “Gapminder World”, an amazing online tool for visualizing data. Figure 2 shows an example. This is a comparison of average energy use and income, both on a per capita basis. Each country is represented by a “bubble” in the diagram.
Figure 2. Bubble plot, by country, of per capita energy use (vertical scale) versus income per person (horizontal scale). Note that both scales are logarithmic. Size of the individual bubbles shows total energy production by that country. Color of bubbles shows total oil production by that country. Units of energy use are tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE) per person per year. SOURCE
As you can see, there is a clear and quite tight linear relationship between energy use and income. This leads to an inexorable conclusion. You can’t get out of poverty without having access to affordable energy. Figure 3 below shows the same data, with larger energy producing nations identified.
Figure 3. Bubble plot, by country, of per capita energy use (vertical scale) versus income per person (horizontal scale). Note that both scales are logarithmic. Size of the individual bubbles shows total energy production by that country. Color of bubbles shows total oil production by that country. Units of energy use are tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE) per person per year. SOURCE
The bubble size shows that the US and China are about tied for top country regarding total energy production. Russia is third, the Saudis fourth, and surprising to me, India fifth. The colors show that for Russia and the Saudis most of the energy is produced from oil (red) while for China and the US coal is also a major source. India’s energy is mostly coal.
Figure 4 below shows the same basic energy vs. income chart, but in a different way. In Figure 4 the bubble size is energy production per capita, rather than total energy production. All of the bubbles are in the same location, but are changed in size.
Figure 4. Bubble plot by country of per capita energy use (vertical scale) versus income per person (horizontal scale). Note that both scales are logarithmic. Size of the individual bubbles shows total energy production per capita. Color of bubbles shows total oil production. Units of energy use are tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE) per person per year. SOURCE
We can draw some fresh conclusions from Figures 3 and 4. One is that you don’t have to produce a lot of energy, either per capita or in total, to have a modern industrial developed economy (lots of small bubbles at upper right). The Netherlands and Japan are examples. The second is that if you have high energy production per capita, it is easier to have high per capita income (preponderance of large bubbles at upper right).
The Gapminder website also allows us to look at the history of the various countries. Here is how some countries have evolved over time. Label lines show the start of each record.
Figures 5 and 6. Same as Figure 3, but showing the evolution of some countries 1971-2007. Size of the individual bubbles shows per capita energy production by that country. Color of bubbles shows total oil production by that country. “Trails” show the year by year values. Note that both scales are logarithmic. Fig. 4 SOURCE1 Fig. 5 SOURCE2:
Some comments on the historical figures. First, the direction you’d love for your country to be moving over time would be down and to the right. This would mean using less energy while making more money. Generally, almost nobody is moving in that direction overall.
The bad direction would be up and to the left. That would be using more energy to make less money. Ugly. The Saudis have moved that way in recent years.
Some countries took the worst quadrant, down and to the left. This is where you are using less energy, and you’re also making less money. Zimbabwe and the “Democratic” Republic of Congo did that. Bad sign. It’s de-development, and it generally involves suffering for both humans and the environment.
That leaves the fourth quadrant, moving up and to the right. Using more energy and making more money. Commonly called “development”, AKA getting out of poverty. Making enough money to be able to afford to protect the environment.
The game is to move to the right as much as you can (increased money) and upwards as little as you can (increased energy). So Bangladesh is not doing as well as India in that regard, since it is moving upwards more steeply. China was doing as well as India in the 70s and 80s, but has sloped upwards in the last decade of the record. Note that India is producing the majority of its energy from coal.
Russia went down and to the left in the early nineties, but has since recovered and nearly doubled its income without much increase in energy. Curiously, the income is now back to the 1990 level, but the energy use is less. The same is true of Uzbekistan and many other former members of the Soviet Empire. To their credit, they have fought back from the breakup of the Empire and returned in a more efficient form. Indeed, the Uzbeks have gone down and to the right in the last decade, and that’s the holy grail of development, doing more with less energy.
The poor Saudis, on the other hand, ended up going almost straight up (more energy used to provide the same income), and even lost a little ground. And Senegal has gone nowhere at all.
Japan, China, Mexico, and Australia have increased their per capita energy production over the period (bubble size), while the US and Russia have stayed about the same. The total oil production for the US has fallen (bubble color) while for China it has increased. Russian oil production fell and then has come back up.
The US and the UK have done a curious thing. Per capita energy use for each country in 2007 was about the same as in 1979. But income went up. Both countries nearly doubled their per capita income, with basically no increase in per capita energy use. Not sure what they are doing right, but we should figure it out and clone it …
Conclusions and final notes:
1. Development is energy, and energy is development. Although efficiency and conservation can help you, in general you must increase energy use in order to increase personal income enough to get out of poverty. If you make energy expensive, it is hugely regressive, as the poor countries and the poor people will simply not be able to afford it. Carbon taxes, “cap-and-trade”, or other energy taxes are a crime against the less favored inhabitants of our planet.
2. Large countries with higher transportation costs will use more energy per dollar of income than do small countries.
3. Within the limits of the “cloud” of countries shown in Figure 3, it is possible to increase energy efficiency, and to make more money using the same amount of energy.
4. Countries that produce lots of energy tend to waste it more than countries that produce little.
5. The preferable place for any given income level to be is on the lower edge of the “cloud” of countries with that income. This is where you get the most bucks for your bang. Many European countries are in this position. The US and Canada are about in the middle of the cloud. However, as noted they are much larger than the European countries.
6. China, India, and Bangladesh had about the same per capita income in 1971, ~ $700 per year. The differences in their current positions are large, with Bangladesh at $1,400, India at $2,600, and China at $6,000 per year.
7. Sadly, the datasets only go up to 2007 … it would be interesting to see the reduction in both energy use and income due to the global financial meltdown.
8. Finally, when someone says the word “technology”, many environmentalists think “bulldozers”. Instead, they should think “energy efficiency”. At the end of the day, technology is about doing more with less. Technology is what allows us to use less gasoline to go a mile. Through some combination of conservation and technological advances, the US and the UK were able to double their income on the same expenditure of energy. This technological advance is to the benefit of everyone including the environment.
Regards to all,
w.
PS—The source links below each chart goes to the corresponding live chart on the Gapminder website, where you can play with the variables or investigate the histories of countries other than the ones at which I looked.
The Rural Electrification Administration of 1936 began the process of making farms more productive, with less labor, at a lower cost per tons of grain. Grain is planted and harvested with energy intensive implements; grain is transported via trucks on roads to grain elevators; shipped by train to distribution points, and by sea to the world. By the 1970’s, 98% of all US farms had electricity. Energy to farm use to be manuel; a man with a scythe could cut 2 acres a day of standing wheat. If dad got sick or injured at planting or harvesting time, a whole family could die; truly organic and subsistent farming. Farming energy engaged horses and horsepower was the measure of how much work could be done. Still steam engine threshing, gas tractors could not overcome the subsistence nature of farming. There were still cows that needed milking, chickens and their “farm fresh eggs”, pigs to be “slopped” (recycle what is currently labeled as garbage and landfilled), and a host of “farm chores” that necessitated child labor. Rural electrification meant industrial grade farming, even by individual families, and a grocery store with its cornucopia of meats, fruits, vegetables, cheeses, oils, wines, etc and the items to prepare and serve each. Less than 100 years ago, that cornucopia was not possible except to the extremely rich. An orange for Christmas was a gift, to be treasured and savored. Now, five pounds of Navel oranges, from California for $3.99, $3.49 with store coupon. Energy for life has moved from manuel, to horsepower, and now kilowatts. In the spirit of Christmas and giving, shouldn’t we give kilowatts to the “…tired and poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free..”
*ferd berple says: December 19, 2011 at 7:42 am Willis, how about a graph of CO2 production for the worlds climate elite? Hansen, Gore, Mann, Pachauri as compared to the average citizen of the world?*
The graph of CO2 production is very similar to that of energy, for a very simple reason – about 86% of the world’s primary energy comes from fossil fuels. The differences between the two graphs come largely from the mix of fossil fuels – countries that have lots of coal as their primary source of energy are higher emitters than those who have lots of natural gas.
There are also, of course, the outliers such as France with its large nuclear contribution and Norway with its hydro power – but these show up quite clearly. The underlying relationship between wealth and energy remains sound.
Also it is interesting that organisations like the International Energy Agency have used population growth and GDP growth to predict energy consumption, and their predictions have proved very reasonable for many years.
“In old times you’d use slaves as the cheap energy source, or you’d exploit child labor or immigrants, etc. Nasty stuff. Nowadays we can use cheap fossil fuels. Without energy, you simply can’t create wealth. So cheap energy allows you to attain wealth. Your wealth cannot create cheap energy.”
Ergo, expensive energy destroys wealth.
Downdraft says:
December 19, 2011 at 11:17 am
To P. Solar:
Regarding your belief that rich countries use more energy because they are rich.
Let’s use a little logic. Assume first that energy is very expensive, so much so that only a few can afford it at all. It should be obvious that only a few people, those selling the energy, would benefit from such a situation.
Now, assume that energy is cheap and limitless. Obviously everyone would benefit economically by such a situation, except perhaps the energy producers.
Further, assume that some countries have abundant energy, while others have little and it is more expensive. Would you locate a factory of any kind in a country with limited and expensive energy, or energy that was only available when the sun shined or the wind blew?
The people that champion wind and solar energy see no problem with increasing the cost of energy, and in fact see it as a means to an end. When Obama said that “energy costs would necessarily skyrocket”, he was saying it proudly. By advocating such a thing, he is advocating a lower standard of living for everyone, and higher costs for everything.
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Why is it that the left is so eager to happily destroy civilization?
Lucy Skywalker says:
December 19, 2011 at 10:39 am
Heck Willis are you fast
Thanks again for this post, which makes an essential point. The last world wars were fought over energy far more than is realized IMO. Germany was trying to build a land-based pipeline to the Middle East through Sarajevo IIRC. The Brits at that point understood very well the importance of oil.
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Japan went on its conquest because the US cut them off oil.
Dambisa Moyo’s “How the West Was Lost: Fifty years of economic folly – and the stark choices ahead” has an interesting perspective on this. Highly recommended reading IMO. The book description at Amazon reads:
“In How the West Was Lost, the New York Times bestselling author Dambisa Moyo offers a bold account of the decline of the West’s economic supremacy. She examines how the West’s flawed financial decisions have resulted in an economic and geopolitical seesaw that is now poised to tip in favor of the emerging world, especially China.
Amid the hype of China’s rise, however, the most important story of our generation is being pushed aside: America is not just in economic decline, but on course to become the biggest welfare state in the history of the West. The real danger is at home, Moyo claims. While some countries – such as Germany and Sweden – have deliberately engineered and financed welfare states, the United States risks turning itself into a bloated welfare state not because of ideology or a larger vision of economic justice, but out of economic desperation and short-sighted policymaking. How the West Was Lost reveals not only the economic myopia of the West but also the radical solutions that it needs to adopt in order to assert itself as a global economic power once again.”
FWIW Ms Moyo has worked for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs. I imagine she would laugh and point at Dave Springer if she knew what tosh he writes 😉
Gail Combs says:
December 19, 2011 at 10:39 am
Like this?
Figure S1. Bubble size is per capita energy production. Color is total energy production.
It seems like a reasonable indicator, although there are countries with few agricultural workers who are not all that well off …
w.
Dave Springer says:
December 19, 2011 at 9:18 am
@Gail Combs
Arm yourself with data not conjecture.
For instance:
http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ironsteel.xls
http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/cement.xls
Steel and cement production are two of the biggest industrial energy hogs there are…..
That I was aware of and why I mentioned it.
Aluminum is another material in common use that is high energy.
As one poster noted there is also the point about existing infrastructure vs building new.
It is a complex subject when you start digging but access to cheap energy drives civilization whether it is oxen and horses in the 1700’s or nuclear power of some nature in the future.
Heck you could improve the lives of the poor in Africa with decent farm equipment and horses, mules or oxen. You go from 250-300 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels of wheat with a walking plow (and some do not even have that) to 40-50 labor-hours required to produce 100 bushels of wheat with gang plow, seeder, harrow, binder, thresher, wagons, and horses, mules or oxen.
Until you can free people from subsistence farming they can not advance and that takes ENERGY whether it is the muscle power of animals coupled with decent farm equipment made of steel or diesel powered tractors.
…………..
I sometime wonder if some of the Neo-Luddites have any idea where the metal comes from that supports most of our civilization. Mining, smelting and fabrication are energy intensive and you need coal, gas or electricity to run a commercial blast furnace.
Without metal you do not have much of a civilization. Flint knapping anyone?
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarm1.htm
Austin says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:06 pm
You ‘da man, Austin! Exactly what I was looking for, including the data, and particularly the R code. Superb.
w.
There were aeronautical professionals before the airplane was invented? Who knew?
Willis Eschenbach says: December 19, 2011 at 11:46 am…
You’ve already answered me re Dave Springer, in your previous copious replies to him. That’s why I said you were fast.
Re the Maximum Informational Coefficient, I’m not a statistician, and don’t even know if Gapminder is capable of handling the correlation I’m thinking of – solar / SSB fluctuations vs global temperatures. Graphs of Vuk etc make it look as if there are not only slower climate change correlations, but also faster short-term fluctuation correlations – and really fast, like Svensmark bagged with the Forbush decrease.
Wishful thinking can trick one into imagining nonexistent correlation, OTOH “simple” mathematical analysis can fail to identify what seems like stunningly clear visual correlation, when there are different frequencies involved.
I became aware of this with my Yamal post that shows close correlation between adjacent Russian thermometer records over shorter and longer fluctuations, while the YAD trees are completely different.
Dave Springer says:
December 19, 2011 at 7:54 am
I don’t see how it supports that idea, much less confirms it. Cutting energy without cutting GDP/capita would be a move straight downwards on the chart over time. I see no country who has been able to do that. Well, Russia and the ‘Stans kinda did, but that’s because they started out incredibly inefficient and got forced to become efficient when the Soviet Empire broke up. Theoretically I suppose a country could move straight downwards on the chart. But in reality, the charts confirm that no one has ever pulled it off, which hardly supports the idea.
The other problem is, take a look at where most of the industrialized nations are—near the bottom edge of the cloud. The odds of them moving downwards much are very small.
w.
At 10:39 AM on 19 December, Gail Combs had asserted:
Do these “labor-hours” figures also include the effort invested in the manufacture of tools and other farm equipment (in both eras) as well as the “back-end” labor and capital devoted to energy exploration, extraction, refinement and delivery to point-of-use in the modern farming industry?
The soldier of 1987 was capable of laying down (and calling in) far more firepower than could the soldier of 1790, but there was immense capital investment behind the more modern combatant, who brought to a focal point on the battlefield the efforts of hundreds of other people, ranging from the guys on the mortars half-a-klick in the rear to the miners who’d gathered the ores with which had been made the weapons and vehicles and munitions used by the soldier at the sharp end of the stick and his support elements.
Much as I’d like to consider tactics and strategy, I’ve got to think about the logistics.
Dave Springer says:
December 19, 2011 at 9:49 am
http://www.eia.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablee1.xls
Above is energy use per dollar of GDP generated listed by nation and continent, annually, from 1980 to present.
Interestingly Eurasia sticks out like a sore thumb consuming almost twice as much energy per dollar GDP as any other region…..
Judging by this data what brings a country out of poverty generally isn’t rising energy consumption per capita but rather rising efficiency in converting energy consumption to gross domestic product.
Technology then appears to be the key. A nation will just spend itself further into the poor house by simply consuming more fuel. The consumption has to efficiently generate GDP. Consumption isn’t, in and of itself, enough. The key is HOW it is consumed not HOW MUCH is consumed.
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Dave, I think you are missing the point.
Eurasia is clawing its way into the 21st century as is China that takes ADDITIONAL ENERGY beyond maintenance. (Building that factory out of cement and steel) The EU and North America were already there although doing their darnedest to head for third world status.
As I showed in the above post technology does not mean diddly if you are stuck following the north end of a southbound mule just to feed yourself. First you have to free yourself from providing the basics and that takes energy. Implementing technology ALSO takes energy.
There is another way of looking at this. It took thousands of years to go from hunter gather to the beginning of the industrial revolution.
The Industrial revolution was also a farming revolution and that was part of the key. The other was over population.
@ur momisugly Gail Combs says:
December 19, 2011 at 11:31 am
Curiousgeorge says:
December 19, 2011 at 8:12 am
Apparently the EPA wants to decide what is Sustainable and what isn’t. I can hardly wait for that! 🙁
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” EXCLUSIVE: EPA Ponders Expanded Regulatory Power In Name of ‘Sustainable Development’
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Gail, I don’t think most folks have thought this through. If the EPA gets their wish, this would mean rationing of nearly everything — energy, food, raw materials, even ultimately including people. This may be a little over the top, but suppose at some point in the future, the EPA decides that, say 310million people are the maximum sustainable population in the USA? Or 200 million? This is nothing less than authority over life and death.
What then? Population control? These two words; “Sustainable Development”, are the two most dangerous words ever voiced. Who decides what is sustainable? Who decides what is development? This grab by the EPA scares the hell out of me, and I fully intend to increase my arsenal beginning tomorrow.
Dave Springer says:
December 19, 2011 at 5:08 am
No, what you mean is two people don’t know the meaning of the word “regressive”. If the price of something, or the tax rate, is constant then the price or the tax is neither progressive or regressive.
Come on now, Dave. Everyone knows the current U.S. tax code’s stable, but increasing rates on taxable income are “progressive”; and likewise Obama’s idea to increasingly tax lesser incomes of the progressively defined downward “rich”. Such measures are also specifically referred to as “progressive” by Karl Marx himself as one of his necessary Communistic principles in producing the renamed but same old “Progressive” Utopia – the multiple examples of which by now certainly everyone should recognize as in fact provenly “regressive” as to its effect on the very people such measures are alleged to “help”, and in fact productive of the very Master-Slave “Capitalist” society which the various Communists allege they are curing.
Everyone should also know by now that the Federal and State taxes on gas do not vary with the retail price of gas, are very substantial, are always stable until the next increase, and are in fact often even greater in effect on gas prices than the evil Big Oil Corporations’ wildest “windfall” profit margins, a term more appropriately applied to the Central Government’s “take” against all of us users of gas and purchasers of every product its use requires.
Now, you and the Ecofascists wouldn’t call all of that regressive, but I would. Not to mention Obama’s intentionally restrictive efforts to constrict the availability of oil and coal. And, writ large, this sure sounds to me like the kinds of things Willis is talking about by comparing GDP/capita and Income/capita to Energy use/capita, and when considering just what is “regressive” and what is not.
Therefore, Dave, I’d advise you to first stop fooling yourself with your own [regressive] word games.
Willis writes “It is a larger percentage of their income for the poor. I read the other day of a lady who is paying most of her social security to heat her home.”
This is an excellent example of where a higher up front cost can benefit in the long run. If she had ever been in a position to buy more efficient heating (say a heat pump) and had done so, now her ongoing heating bills would have been significantly lower. But instead she has chosen to go down the path of least expense, knowing oil would increase in price and is now feeling the pinch.
I liken this to making the choice to pay up front and go to renewable energy now vs taking the easy cheap way out and going with the ever increasing price of fossil fuels.
The other comparison to be drawn is that she is increasingly in a position where she is locked into her initial choice because her options are fewer with the burden of this cost.
Nice graphs, Willis!
December 19, 2011 at 11:37 am
@Gail
It’s a bit of an urban legend that the US became service oriented. We became high technology oriented. Who invented the transister, the microprocessor, the personal computer, and the internet?….
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That used to be true.
Now we are scrapping the bottom of the barrel education wise:
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
U.S. Technology Transfer Policies and the Modernization of China’s Military: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2644540
Technology Transfer Agreements in EU and U.S. Antitrust Law http://europe.stanford.edu/research/technology_transfer_agreements_in_eu_and_us_antitrust_law
On top of all this most of the “High tech” jobs are now filled by H-1B Visas
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/brought-you-ge-american-express-were-white-house-lets-destroy-more-jobs
The Other side of H-1B visas:
America’s Other Immigration Crisis: We are bringing the world’s smartest people to our shores, training them, and then making them leave. http://www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/america2019s-other-immigration-crisis/
Willis Eschenbach says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Gail Combs says:
December 19, 2011 at 10:39 am
… The well being of a country can be measured by how much food a farmer produces.
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Thanks Willis.
There will always be outliers, the countries that use trade instead of producing their own food but when push comes to shove you can not eat gold.
ChE says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:45 pm
There were aeronautical professionals before the airplane was invented? Who knew?
_______________________
Of course there were…. We call them the birds and the bees
Tucci78 says:
December 19, 2011 at 12:57 pm
….Do these “labor-hours” figures also include the effort invested in the manufacture of tools and other farm equipment (in both eras) as well as the “back-end” labor and capital devoted to energy exploration, extraction, refinement and delivery to point-of-use in the modern farming industry? ….
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Not my figures, but I very much doubt it includes the manufacture of tools.
However farm tools generally last a lot longer than what we think they would. (I have usable ones over a hundred years old) The “cost” of Farm equipment is one reason for consolidating farms. The farms in Poland for example are/were an average size of 18 acres. Commercial farms here in the USA run into the hundreds if not thousands of acres. (Economy of size)
Therefore it is really hard to make comparisons and farm subsidies really muck up the waters.
Curiousgeorge says:
December 19, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Gail, I don’t think most folks have thought this through. If the EPA gets their wish, this would mean rationing of nearly everything….
Oh I understand alright that is what the GRRrrrr was for at the end. Agenda 21 aka Sustainability is nothing more than a return to serfdom. The Lords used to have the power of life and death over the serfs could refuse to permit marriage…. George Bernard Shaw (founding member of the Fabian Society) and Holdren have made it darn clear THAT is their goal too.
http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=7948
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
Two views of the Fabian Society:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Fabian_Society
http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/the-fabian-model_british-fabian-society-dynastic-banking-families-_-fabian-ministers-our/
http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/fabian-society-literally-control-the-european-union-plus-the-british-government/
I wish these idiot “Progressives” would SEE Agenda 21 is nothing more than a return to slavery/serfdom!
TimTheToolMan says:
December 19, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Willis writes “It is a larger percentage of their income for the poor. I read the other day of a lady who is paying most of her social security to heat her home.”
This is an excellent example of where a higher up front cost can benefit in the long run. If she had ever been in a position to buy more efficient heating (say a heat pump) and had done so, now her ongoing heating bills would have been significantly lower. But instead she has chosen to go down the path of least expense, knowing oil would increase in price and is now feeling the pinch…
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Oh good grief, as the working poor she probably never HAD the choice of buying more efficient heating because she could never save up that much money. Your attitude is so typical of the “Progressives” whose compassion for others only extends to coercing them to vote for what you want.
Also the only decent “Renewable Energy” is hydro which the econuts more or less BANNED in the USA and Nuclear which the screaming Nimby Chicken Littles will not allow. I can see a nuclear plant from my window BTW so unlike the Neo-Luddites I live what I preach.
If the Neo-Luddites ever got instantaneously transported into the life style they advocate you would hear them screaming all the way to the north pole because life would be darn difficult.