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Reflecting on his daughter’s future, a father says the green movement must diversify

The face of America is changing — is the environmental movement ready to face change too? “Kyra, do you know this is yours?” I ask, looking down at the skinny little girl with big, curly, dark brown locks. Her hair to body proportion resembles Thing One and Thing Two from Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the […]

Today’s gas consumption shows that price increases are only one part of the solution

As SUV sales plummet and gasoline use finally drops, one meme spreading around is, "Looks like people respond to price after all." The implication seems to be that any demand response other than zero proves that prices are wonderfully effective.

The problem, however, is not response is or might be zero. (I can think of few who ever claimed that.) The problem is that it takes a big price increase to produce a small response.

The current data support the conventional wisdom: 40 to 50 percent long-term elasticity, low enough to discourage us from relying on price as the main means of reducing emissions, high enough encourage us to use price as one among many means. At first glance, the raw data are even more discouraging than the conventional wisdom: Inflation adjusted gasoline prices have risen almost two-and-a-half times since 2000. Gasoline demand has dropped by slightly over 20 percent. But long-term elasticity is, by definition, a delayed response -- at least three years.

Also, if we are interested in price response as opposed to income response, we have to adjust for growth in GDP. So a rough calculation yields 45 percent long-term elasticity (with some biases that probably overstate the result). Here are two graphs, the first of raw data, the second after adjustment (click for larger versions):

Boxer op-ed argues the Climate Security Act vote was a big step forward

Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote an op-ed in today’s San Jose Mercury News on the failed Climate Security Act that she championed in the Senate. In it, she argues that last week’s vote was an important advancement. “[O]ur strong vote proves that we are moving in the right direction,” she […]

Former French prez launches foundation to preserve biodiversity

Former French President Jacques Chirac has launched a foundation aimed at preserving cultural and natural diversity that humans seem intent upon obliterating. The Chirac Foundation will provide funds to improve access to water and medicines in developing countries, fight deforestation and desertification, and preserve languages and cultures that are on the verge of dying out. […]

Good big-picture view of the emerging cleantech market

I found this video, from an NDN event called “Understanding the Cleantech Investment Opportunity,” intensely educational (warning: it’s over an hour long):

This summer, form a family nature club

Don’t miss another sunset. In past decades, when summer rolled around, parents told their children, “Go outside, and don’t come home ’til the street lights come on.” In most neighborhoods, those days are unlikely to return anytime soon. Today, parents fear strangers and strange lawyers and nature itself. Though some of this trepidation is warranted, […]

U.S. officials dither while antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains creep into our pork supply

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. The good news is that people are earnestly trying to figure out if a deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria strain is infecting our nation’s vast supply of pork. The bad news is, they don’t work for a government regulator with the power […]

Green groups sue feds to protect polar bears from oil-drilling effects

Two green groups are suing the Interior Department over its refusal to limit the impacts of drilling on polar bears, which were listed as threatened last month. The Bush administration has tried its darnedest to ensure that listing the bears wouldn’t limit oil and gas exploration in their Alaskan habitat, but Pacific Environment and the […]

First deal inked for maker of modular, utility-scale solar thermal power plants

In the transition to a clean, green economy, one milestone promises to be the most symbolically powerful. It’s the one adopted as an official target by Google: renewable energy cheaper than coal, or RE<C. When it announced its campaign, Google also announced the recipients of its initial investments. One was eSolar, a Pasadena, Calif.-based company […]

Science academies of 13 nations urge G8 to tackle climate change

Ahead of the G8 summit in Japan next month, the science academies of 13 nations, including the United States, urged the G8 nations as well as Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa (G8+5) to agree to cut world greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2050. “We urge G8+5 leaders to make maximum efforts to carry […]