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The Real Problems with Paul Krugman’s Climate Economics Primer

  But let’s start by accenting the positive.  Krugman’s explanation of mainstream environmental economics is clear and powerful.  He recognizes that there really are a lot of free energy lunches lying around uneaten, in the form of potential efficiency improvements.  He knows that predictions of economic disaster due to carbon policy are without foundation and […]

How green are Obama’s potential Supreme Court picks?

Update: Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan hasn’t said much about her environmental views, but she has a solid record of supporting climate law. Here’s the full story on her green cred.   President Barack Obama is reportedly considering about 10 people to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, although popular consensus has quickly […]

Chicago considers getting serious about coal pollution

The Fisk coal-fired power plant, ChicagoCourtesy swanksalot via FlickrChicago Alderman Joe Moore is taking aim at urban air pollution, introducing a Clean Power Ordinance today that would force overhauls of the city’s two coal-fired power plants, both located in Hispanic neighborhoods. The plan would introduce new limits for particulates (soot) and carbon dioxide, restricting how […]

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 […]