Latest Articles
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Second-to-last issue of the Bali ECO newsletter
Issue #10 if the Bali ECO is here (PDF). You may need to read between the lines a bit if you haven't been following the negotiations. But it's not hard.
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Transportation planning with people in mind
Say what you will about streetcars, they have an unmatched appeal. I mean, there must be a reason why it's hard to imagine a smoldering love affair between Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh with a bus theme.
Or, as the inimitable Dan Savage says:
Why is this so hard to understand? ... People like trains. People hate buses.
To wit, the Seattle P-I recently interviewed folks about the new Seattle streetcar and elicited what I imagine are fairly typical sentiments:
Bryan Lenning ... could take the bus downtown ... But for some reason, he'd rather take the streetcar. "But I'd never take the bus." He'd rather walk or drive downtown.
Mari Stobbe ... "I'd never take a bus. I've never been on a bus. I've never had any desire to be on a bus," she said. "(But) the streetcar seems like it would have a different feel." -
Umbra on a safe return
Dearest Readers, I am back. My captors released me early this morning, and I have never been happier to walk somewhere in my life. All that driving gets one down, doesn’t it? Big thanks to the more than 2,000 of you who donated to Grist to help secure my release. I am in your debt, […]
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Big ideas come out of Hollywood Goes Green summit
“Hollywood has gone from the capital of conspicuous consumption to the cutting edge of conspicuous conservation,” Arianna Huffington declared recently. Case in point: A two-day Hollywood Goes Green summit that wraps up today. At the summit, tech giant IBM announced a plan to design new technologies that will increase computing capacity by a factor of […]
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Yet more energy bill woes
This may seem narrow and technical, but it's actually extremely significant:
The White House has raised last-minute concerns over regulation of automobile emissions and fuel economy that aides said Tuesday could lead to a presidential veto of the energy bill now before Congress.
The bill, which passed the House and is pending in the Senate, requires automakers to meet a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, but does not specify which government agency should enforce the new rule.
Primary regulation of mileage standards has historically fallen to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an arm of the Transportation Department. But vehicle tailpipe emissions are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and a Supreme Court ruling this year affirmed the E.P.A.'s authority to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from passenger vehicles, which basically would mean regulating their fuel use.The administration's argument is that the energy bill will create unnecessary confusion over which agency has proper jurisdiction over mileage standards. And at a glance it seems like a reasonable argument. But, of course, it's absolutely not reasonable at all.
This is better understood as a bank-shot effort by the Bush administration to block the EPA from functionally regulating carbon emissions from automobiles on behalf of the interest groups that don't want to be bothered with reducing auto pollution.
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Energy bill to be voted on in Senate tomorrow
Some days are uneventful, with little but the promise of extra pie for dessert to get you through. And then ... some days are pivots upon which the course of history turns, moments in time when each of us are called upon to decide the kind of future we want for ourselves and our children, and take to the ramparts. Tomorrow is one such day.
Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on a revised energy bill. Negotiators have jettisoned the renewable electricity standard (RES) and altered some of the revenue-raising tax provisions to make it more palatable to oil-aligned senators and the White House. Still in are CAFE and critical solar investment tax credits necessary to bring solar into the mainstream.
The vote will be extremely close -- the bill needs 60 votes to pass, and the opposition is burning up the phone lines, urging Senators not to vote for a bill that eliminates unneeded production incentives for the oil and gas industry. Word is the good guys are one vote short.
Some people are taking advantage of this moment in history to call their senators and tell them how they feel about renewable energy. Those people find the number of their senators here.
Bill text, bill summary, and solar talking points can all be found here.
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Guess which type of energy comes in last in a recent poll
GlobeScan, a self-styled "global public opinion and stakeholder research" organization based in Toronto, has just published the results of a survey of 1,000 climate "decision-makers and influencers" from across 105 countries, conducted in the two weeks leading up to the Bali Climate Conference (Nov. 22-Dec. 5, 2007).
According to the firm's website:
Unlike public opinion polls, this survey focuses on the views of professionals in position to make or influence large decisions in their organizations and society. This focus, together with the survey's large global sample and good balance of respondents across all geographies and sectors, makes this survey unique.
A bar chart showing the results in graphic form is found below the fold.
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NYC taxicabs will have to boost fuel economy
New York City taxicabs purchased after Oct. 1, 2008, will be required to get at least 25 miles per gallon, and those purchased after fall 2009 will have to get 30 mpg — so, basically, will have to be hybrids, according to a rule adopted by the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. The city’s iconic […]
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Cato’s Jerry Taylor responds to Michael Tobis
The following is a reply to a post by Michael Tobis entitled "Should economics rule?"
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Well, I take it that Michael means to suggest that someone out there -- in this case, me -- would contend that economic analysis should dictate climate policy. I do not hold that opinion. For a brief defense of my position, see my post on the matter at the Cato Institute website. By the way, even a lot of scientists held in high esteem by the Grist crowd would have little complaint with my argument that scientists are in no position as scientists to dictate public policy. See, for instance, these comments by Prof. Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
"Is one a Marxist or even a Stalinist for pointing out that economists are not, themselves, necessarily right about everything?"
I don't know quite what that means. No one among us -- no matter what their academic training -- is "right" about everything ... so far as I know. The consensus beliefs within any academic discipline are unlikely to represent the last and final truth on every subject within that field, given the limitations of human knowledge. So I agree with Michael but am not aware of anyone serious who would not.
"Economists, meanwhile, claim to have the key to rationality."
I don't know of a single economist who claims that their discipline is intrinsically more "rational" than any other. I don't even know what that would mean exactly. A more crisply stated proposition is that many (most?) economists think of themselves as empiricists. They distrust disciplines that do not empirically test their hypotheses in any meaningful way. Likewise, they distrust arguments that cannot be tested and disproved (which means that the argument in question is actually religious in nature). In that regard, they are much like scientists and think of themselves in the same way.
An important (albeit minority) exception is the so-called Austrian school of economics, which contends that economic cause and effect is so difficult to isolate that the empiricism embraced by most modern-day economists is a practical fantasy. The Chicago school of economics (the bastion of what most people are referring to when they refer to "neo-classical economics") would beg to differ. And in case you are curious, there are both "Austrians" and "Chicago-ites" here at Cato.
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Some Arab countries have passed the U.S. in per capita oil consumption
A fascinating and important article was the lead story in Sunday's New York Times:
The economies of many big oil-exporting countries are growing so fast ... several of the world's most important suppliers may need to start importing oil within a decade to power all the new cars, houses and businesses they are buying and creating with their oil wealth.
