Year: 2013
The Case for Carbon Austerity
Many people are worried that a high national debt imposes a burden on future generations, though not all economists agree. But carbon emissions are also a burden on later generations — the CO2 will stay in the atmosphere many decades to come, causing damaging climate change. If we’re worried about burdens on later generations, is …
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CONTINUE READINGMajor Progress on Climate Legislation
Well, I certainly didn’t expect this one: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) announced today that is reconsidering his long-held position that climate change represents “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” Oklahoma is currently suffering under the worst drought since the Dust Bowl, and thousands of farmers across the state have gone bankrupt. “The …
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CONTINUE READINGDomestic Manufacturing Worker Chemical Exposure and OSHA
We seek more manufacturing jobs in the United States and we want these jobs to be high paying and low risk. Is this “win-win” achievable? The NY Times has a long article about long term toxic exposure risk in North Carolina manufacturing plants. “A chemical she handled — known as n-propyl bromide, or nPB — …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Economic Approach to Handling Water Scarcity in New Mexico
The New York Times alerts its urban readers in the Northeast (including my Manhattan parents) about drought in the West and in particular in New Mexico. To an economist, its a pinch surprising that the vaunted Times doesn’t mention the price of water in New Mexico. Being an adept user of the Internet, I spent …
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CONTINUE READINGWe Forgot The Horse!
It’s been a while since we discussed Great Environmental Songs. But we missed an important one. In 1972, when I was seven, if your radio was not playing Don McLean’s “American Pie,” it was playing “Horse With No Name” by a new band called “America” — a somewhat ironic name since the band was in …
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CONTINUE READINGClear Views in the High Desert
If you are looking for a politically progressive city, Lancaster, California would not make it on your list. Located in the deeply conservative Antelope Valley of north Los Angeles County, it has attracted attention by, inter alia, 1) electing Pete Knight, one of the most vicious anti-gay politicians in the country, to a series of state …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Demand for Temperate Climate and The Quality of Life Impacts Caused by Climate Change
Some good friends of mine have written an important paper on the economic costs of climate change with a focus on its impact on amenities and the “good life”. In a nutshell, will San Francisco continue to be “San Francisco” as climate change plays out? What would we lose if it becomes Fresno? …
CONTINUE READINGClimate Adaptation and the Two Chinas (and the Two Brazils, and the Two Indias….)
The world used to be divided into developed countries and developing countries, but a third group has now taken the stage: emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil that are growing very rapidly but haven’t yet attained developed country status. But development in these countries is uneven. In China, for example, there has been explosive …
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CONTINUE READINGIf It Quacks Like a Duck: Intermittent Renewables and the Grid
At an energy policy conference that I attended on campus recently, one of the speakers asked how many people in the audience were familiar with the Duck Chart. As someone who tries to stay on top of things in the energy world, I was surprised by how many people raised a hand to express familiarity …
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CONTINUE READINGComparing U.S. Universities’ Environmental Programs
When the U.S. News rankings came out, naturally I looked first at the rankings for environmental law. But then I got curious about the rankings for other environmental fields. I had very little idea, for example, about how ecology departments were ranked. Of course, we all know about the issues with U.S. News’s methodology. …
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