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Environmental and Urban Economics in Six Minute Videos

This is an infomercial.  On youtube, I will be posting 70 short videos focused on key ideas in environmental and urban economics.  I’m hoping to reach a wide audience.  All of the videos in order are posted here. Download as PDF

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Canada’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 …

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Barry Commoner and Our Interconnected World

Barry Commoner was born in Brooklyn in 1917 and died there yesterday, having helped conceptualize environmentalism in the meantime. You can learn more about his life from the NY Times obituary. Commoner is probably best known today for his four environmental “laws”: Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best. …

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Roger Cohen Has a Lazy Day

I suppose that it’s tough writing two 750-word columns each week; that’s why the NYT’s Roger Cohen decided to rehash his hatchet job on organic foods in today’s paper. In a previous column, Cohen ridiculed fans of organic food, pointing to a Stanford study finding that organic foods were no healthier for human beings than …

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What foie gras and low carbon fuels have in common

Many of you may have heard of California’s ban on foie gras. The ban was signed into law in 2004 by that notorious hippie, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but did not take effect until 2012. Fewer of you may be aware of the current litigation over California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) program. Litigation concerning both …

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Organic Farming and the Environment

A Stanford study of organic food garnered lots of media attention last week (here’s coverage on NPR, in the New York Times and on CNN).  The bottom line:  organic foods, by and large, according to the Stanford researchers, confer few health advantages when compared to their conventional counterparts.   Critics of the study — or at least of the media coverage …

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The Top Ten Problems with Romney’s Energy Proposal

It’s a great plan in terms of increasing oil and coal profits while helping to cook the planet. Not so great otherwise.

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Romney Endorses Keynesian Stimulus Spending — But Calls It an Energy Plan

I posted last week about the Romney energy plan and the super-optimistic projections of energy production it borrows from a Citigroup report.  (here and here). The Romney plan touts enormous economic benefits in terms of job creation, also derived from the same Citigroup report.  Of course, Romney doesn’t mention the report’s warning that its analysis …

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Waste Not, Want Not

In trying to catch up on my reading, I discovered that the August 10 issue of the journal Science has a special section on “working with waste.” The theme is the ability of waste to contribute to society as a form of energy or raw materials: [T]rash is often treasure— a feedstock that cannot be …

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Loosening Our Belts to Consume More Oil

There is a favorite saying among transportation planners that building more freeway lanes to fight congestion is like loosening your belt to fight obesity. This idea comes to mind when considering the most recent Mitt Romney plan to achieve energy independence in the United States. Romney proposes drilling our way out of foreign oil dependence despite …

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