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50 years after the Pill and this is the best we can do?

Happy 50th Birthday, Pill.The media are making a big deal out of fêting the Pill on its 50th birthday, but forgive me if I don’t see much reason to celebrate. Of course I’ll grant that the birth control pill has vastly improved the lives of many women — more than 100 million are taking it […]

Renewable Energy Solution of the Month – Wind

  That there is power in the wind is not a new discovery, man has been using it for thousands of years. What most people don’t realize is how much experimentation has been going  on in this century.       there is no shortage of energy..  

Obama’s failure on climate change

Last week, Josh Green had an op-ed in The Boston Globe called “Even an oil spill won’t move Washington,” which points out the bizarre fact that the BP Gulf oil disaster seems only to have entrenched politicians in their pre-existing positions. They asked me to write a short response for their website. I did, and […]

CBO stumbles into the green jobs debate

Cross-posted from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. On May 5, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an issue brief titled “How Policies to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Affect Employment” [PDF]. With unemployment hovering stubbornly around 10 percent, the report could shape the Senate’s appetite for taking up the energy and climate change bill […]

In the age of electric cars, who pays for highways?

Charging up a Chevy Volt. Photo courtesy mkooiman via FlickrHere’s a conundrum as the electric-car future arrives: Once we all start hitting the highway in our Nissan Leafs, Chevy Volts and Think City’s, who’s going to pay for our roads? State and federal excise taxes on every gallon of gasoline sold in the United States […]

Accident expert weighs in on Gulf oil spill

Charles PerrowRegulation, regulation, regulation. Until the U.S. can make the switch to renewables, insists professor and author Charles Perrow, regulation is the best way to prevent disasters like the Gulf oil spill. Perrow is an organizational theorist, emeritus professor at Yale University, and author of Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. He studies accidents. […]

Cap-and-dividend: the worst possible way to regulate GHG emissions

Cap-and-dividend stinks. There are probably worse ways to regulate GHG emissions, but none that have gotten any kind of traction inside the beltway. Its advocates — in particular, Peter Barnes and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) — are, so far as I can tell, truly motivated to find good policy solutions. I don’t know either of […]

The Climate Post: The empiricist strikes back

First things first: Let’s first pause for a moment to recognize where we are. Three U.S. Senators took the mantle for climate and climate leadership in this Congress, Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Over a series of many months, involving many colleagues, many industries, and many advocacy groups, they […]

Russia’s public conservation lands under threat [updated]

The Khimki Forest Park.Photo: oDRussia[JULY 21 UPDATE] Some time during the third week of July, workers for the French construction company Vinci began cutting trees along the route of the proposed road. They were discovered by activists and when they could not produce a cutting permit, a fight broke out and the workers chased off. […]

Keeping the farmer in farmers markets

Photo: Natalie MaynorEarlier this week, the Wall Street Journal aired a bit of dirty laundry that was hiding out in local food’s hamper — the ongoing fight over who gets to sell in farmers markets. Many markets require that sellers be actual growers, rather than “resellers” of some form or another. At a certain level, […]