Climate Change and Tonight’s Debate
A key issue is missing from the list of topics for tonight's debate. Climate change is a global problem with global impacts, ultimately requiring a global solution. Climate change is a threat multiplier from the point of view of national security, intensifying the risk of international conflict and terrorism. (See here for more.) It has been a subject of U.S. diplomacy for more than twenty years, and it fully deserves a place in tonight's foreign affairs debate. The ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Damage Caused by Climate Change Induced Natural Disasters
Joe Romm has posted a mildly interesting post on the damage from natural disasters. A couple of thoughts. 1. Ignoring the last year of the data, the reported Figure 15 shows that in the average year that North America suffers roughly 15 billion dollars worth of damage from natural disasters. I have two evil points to make. First, given that unemployment is high such damage actually creates a demand to rebuild (so Mother Nature is a Keynesian stimulus). Second...
CONTINUE READINGGood News On U.S. Carbon Emissions
At Copenhagen, President Obama pledged to cut carbon emissions by 17% by 2020 below 2005. According to Resources for the Future (RFF), the most respected think tank on energy issues, the U.S. is "on course to achieve reductions of 16.3 percent from 2005 levels in 2020." RFF identifies three contributing factors: EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act, trends in relative fuel prices (especially cheaper natural gas) and energy efficiency, and state efforts. "Perhaps e...
CONTINUE READINGEncouraging Precautionary Investment in an Increasingly Risky World
The NY Times has published an Opinion Piece about reducing wildfire risk in the American West. Due to climate change, actions such as machinery creating sparks that ignite brush are more likely to happen. When we anticipate this chain of events, what ex-ante actions should we take? Should there be more brush clearance in a vicinity of the train tracks? If your answer is "yes", then what sets of laws do we need to encourage more precautionary investment? Of c...
CONTINUE READINGReally, David Brooks?
I sat down at my computer this morning intending to blast away at an academic article I'm writing but only after peeking at the NY Times. I thought a little newspaper reading would be the end of my procrastination until I read David Brooks, something I don't always do but couldn't resist when I saw the headline, "A Sad Green Story." But once I read it I had to respond. I knew from the headline that Solyndra would make an appearance. What I didn't expect was that A...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Happens When You Feed Garbage Data to a Nobel Prize Winner? — The Bizarre Story of the Phantom Job Gains from Romney’s Deregulation Plan
Deregulation is one of Romney's five steps in his plan to add jobs. But how do we supposedly know that deregulation will add jobs? It's a fascinating story, featuring a Nobel laureate's economic model. The model is very fancy, lots of complex math, but it's justified on the basis of data from a discredited study. Garbage in, garbage out. The story begins with a new white paper from the Romney campaign. Four leading economists attempt to provide an explanation...
CONTINUE READINGCanada’s ocean fertilization flap, and its significance
There’s a ruckus going on over an experiment in ocean fertilization conducted off the coast of British Columbia in July and disclosed this week (see here, and here). The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, an enterprise of the Haida village of Old Massett, used a large fishing vessel to spread 100 tons of iron sulfate-rich dust on the ocean surface west of Haida Gwaii (or the Queen Charlotte Islands). The aim of the release was to increase plankton growth and t...
CONTINUE READINGFracking Lawsuit Filed in California Against State Agency
Earthjustice filed a lawsuit two days ago in Alameda County Superior Court on behalf of four environmental plaintiffs charging that the California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) has failed to consider or evaluate the risks of fracking, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Plaintiffs -- the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, Environmental Working Group and Sierra Club -- seek declara...
CONTINUE READINGThe Truth About EPA’s Regulation of Coal
EPA has been accused of killing the coal industry by insanely over-regulating coal-fired power plants and factories. The facts are different. The Congressional Research Service is a reliable, non-partisan source of information. Here is what CRS says about the impact of the EPA rules: The primary impacts of many of the rules will largely be on coal-fired plants more than 40 years old that have not, until now, installed state-of-the-art pollution controls. Many of these...
CONTINUE READINGIs It Bad Politics To Talk About the Environment?
In response to my post expressing disappointment about the treatment of environmental issues in last night's debate, Dan posted this comment: I agree that the lack of discussion of the environment was disappointing. But we have to remember that the debaters were primarily aiming their remarks at a small segment of the U.S. public whose votes are up for grabs in about nine states. This is a very small segment of the population. I guess we can deduce that this small group ...
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