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The trouble with Brazil’s much-celebrated ethanol ‘miracle’

Not as sweet as advertised: industrial-scale sugarcane production in Brazil.This is a post about Brazil’s sugarcane-ethanol “miracle,” but I can’t resist starting off with a look askance at our own corn-derived ethanol phenomenon. Has there ever been a “green” technology more ecologically discredited than corn-based ethanol? It may yield slightly more energy than it consumes […]

Mining industry invests in politicans; stopped mine safety laws

A bill to help rescue miners in emergencies and protect miners’ safety was defeated in Congress three years ago. After passing the House, the bill, called the S-MINER Act, died in a Senate committee. Mining interests, who were opposed to this bill, gave twice as much money in campaign contributions to House members who voted […]

Taxpayer dollars subsidizing destruction

One way to correct market failures is tax shifting — raising taxes on activities that harm the environment so that their prices begin to reflect their true cost and offsetting this with a reduction in income taxes. A complementary way to achieve this goal is subsidy shifting. Each year the world’s taxpayers provide at least […]

Everybody poops…for a price

While it’s true that an airplane bathroom isn’t necessarily anyone’s idea of a five-star restroom experience, it does come as a welcome relief 30,000 feet above the ground after two in-flight club sodas. So imagine your surprise when, after scrambling over your fellow passengers and down the narrow aisle with a full bladder, there’s a […]

Illegal logging funding Taliban attacks on U.S. troops

In case you didn’t have enough reasons to dislike the Taliban, The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov looks at how they’re using revenue from illegal logging to finance attacks on U.S. troops (though, via some monumentally twisted logic, the article actually blames the logging ban, rather than the Taliban forces doing the logging and profiting […]

Hey Paul Krugman: How about less econ theory and more econ mechanics?

Illustration by Michael Freimuth and Kyle PoffMany people, including me and, um, Al Gore, have recommended Paul Krugman’s primer on climate economics. It’s a top-notch introduction and a welcome antidote to the ignorance and hysteria that characterize most media coverage of climate policy. Read it! In describing environmental economics, however, Krugman simply passes along many […]

Is Masters champion Phil Mickelson unwittingly helping ExxonMobil greenwash its anti-science record?

I’m interested in your thoughts on how much greenwashing this is on a scale of 1 to 10. I watch pretty much every major golf tournament. And that means that I saw some great golf played this weekend at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia, especially by the winner, Phil Mickelson. It also means I saw […]

Virginia AG mocks dangers of CO2, telling Tea Partiers to hold their breath and make the EPA happy

  On Saturday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli attended the Powhatan Taxpayers’ Alliance Tea Party rally to address his beloved base.  Think Progress has the details of his anti-science pandering: Cuccinelli reportedly greeted the crowd by saying that it was “great to be with so many people who appreciate the Constitution” and then talked about his challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s […]

Wind industry growing in blue and red states alike

Photo: NREL/Iberdrola RenewablesAs Paul Krugman’s New York Times Magazine cover story on environmental economics, “Building the Green Economy,” was ricocheting around the enviro blogosphere last week, the American Wind Energy Association released its annual report [PDF] on the state of the wind industry. It was an interesting juxtaposition — Krugman’s deep dive into the macroeconomics […]

The New Bottom Line

As the economy begins to rebound, businesses are again focused on commodities that may be in short supply when manufacturing shifts back into high gear. Oil, refined fuels, steel, and electricity are among many things that may be harder to get or just harder to afford. But what about the one commodity that is needed […]