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Nobel winner explains why markets can’t replace public goods

From Reuters:

Societies should not rely on market forces to protect the environment or provide quality health care for all citizens, a winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for economics said on Monday. ... "The market doesn't work very well when it comes to public goods," said [Professor Eric] Maskin ...

Mechanism Design Theory is one explanation for why even a well-regulated market with external costs priced via Pigovian or green taxes is inadequate in areas like environmental performance or health care.

Certain types of goods -- public goods -- simply cannot be allocated efficiently through market mechanisms alone. This was known long before Mechanism Design Theory came along.

For example, the U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other nation, and gets worse results. There are various reasons for this, but one is that a competitive market in health insurance tends to provide more insurance and less healthcare than public insurance mechanisms.

Community food projects empowering low-income residents

Food is turning up everywhere, and I don't mean on your plate. For the past year, journalists and authors have stuck on the topic like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth, and what's especially notable is the focus on policy solutions and the Farm Bill. Articles are so numerous that as I started to compile them, I realized that I could spend a whole post just linking to them (find a few here).

As I contemplate the impact of our farm and food policy on the environment, how to reduce food miles, and the impact of our diet on global warming, I am also aware that local food is often perceived as elitist. Healthy and local food is often more expensive because farmers are taking care of their workers and the land, but it still needs to be accessible to everyone, both in regards to price and where consumers can buy healthy local food. One way that the Farm Bill can impact the ability of all people to eat locally is to fund programs that help connect low-income consumers to farmers, or in some cases to the land itself.

While industrial agriculture fouls the Mississippi, the EPA cowers in the corner

Industrial agriculture thrives on its ability to skulk away from — or, to use economist’s argot, "externalize" — the costs of its considerable ecological messes. Often, it does so with the tacit approval of the federal government, in direct violation of federal law. In Iowa, for example, the state’s 2,100 CAFOs (confined-animal feedlot operations) regularly […]

Take action on the energy bill

... go here and sign the petition. As we've seen, the bill is hanging by thread with a threatened presidential veto and partisan squabbling in the Senate. Still, if Bush is going to threaten a veto, best to actually make him do so, and force the key issues, fuel economy standards and a renewable portfolio standard, into the public eye and hopefully the presidential campaign.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Gossip, cool events, and personal vignettes I’ve come across during my travels

1. Japanese press at NYC show commenting on how no eco-fashion label has hit their fancy yet. (Oh, but how far we have come since a few years ago!)
2. People Tree (ironically a very popular brand in Japan) has secured 300,000 Euros to help expand its line.
3. Sofala Investments, the parent company of the African luxury label a.d. schwarz, will plant a tree this October and November at its forest reserve in Mozambique for every registered race participant in The Race against Global Warming, to neutralize each racer's carbon emissions.
4. Posh labels like Bahar Shahpar and Be Carbon Neutral hit the L.A. scene at the Eco Nouveau show.
5. "Nice Toms": The passing compliment I got from a girl on the subway in regards to the Toms shoes I was sporting. (For every pair you buy, Toms will give one pair away to a child who does not have shoes ... and rumor has it that the company is going to be doing a shoe drop soon.)
6. Model before the Ekovaruhuset runway show commenting on how she hopes her nip doesn't slip in her itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny tiny organic cotton bikini.
7. Plugging the plight of the Great Bear Rainforest (the largest contiguous coastal temperate rainforest in the world, just north of Vancouver, whose surrounding trees are often pulped for junk mail and magazines) at a speech in front of Hearst Corporation executives in NYC (the largest magazine publishing house).
8. Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain known for its production of wind and solar energy, is bringing back sound textile manufacturing practices and becoming a breeding ground for more eco-conscious fashion labels.
9. Getting compliments from the boat crew in the Great Bear Rainforest on my stylish (and very functional) recycled PET jacket shell from Nau. It rained every day for eight days straight. That jacket was really working hard for me!
10. Talks of a "Not Made in China" label.

Rudy Giuliani’s stance on climate and energy

Many GOP contenders acknowledge that humans probably play some role in recent climate change -- but that's as far as the agreement goes, as the NY Times explained today:

Senator John McCain of Arizona is calling for capping gas emissions linked to warming and higher fuel economy standards. Others, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mitt Romney, are refraining from advocating such limits and are instead emphasizing a push toward clean coal and other alternative energy sources.

All agree that nuclear power should be greatly expanded.

McCain recently said, "I have had enough experience and enough knowledge to believe that unless we reverse what is happening on this planet, my dear friends, we are going to hand our children a planet that is badly damaged."

Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani say little about the potential dangers of climate change and almost nothing about curbing emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. They talk almost exclusively about the need for independence from foreign oil as a necessity for national security.

Fred D. Thompson, after mocking the threat in April, said more recently that "climate change is real" and suggested a measured approach until more was known about it.

You can read about all the candidates' views (from both parties) at the NY Times election guide on climate change (or better yet, at Grist's special series on the candidates). Hillary will be announcing her energy plan next week, and we've already seen Obama's terrific plan. Since Rudy appears more and more likely to be the Republican nominee, let's look a bit more at where he stands (and at why even the NYT coverage of the subject remains as frustrating as ever):

BREAKING: Gore still not running!

Sounds vaguely familiar.

Green un-building catching on in the U.S.

What’s the opposite of green building? Green un-building (aka, deconstruction)! And it’s catching on in the United States in that if-you-have-the-time-and-money-and-inclination kind of way. About 245,000 houses are torn town in the U.S. each year and roughly 1,000 of them are carefully deconstructed with up to 85 percent of their parts going to other projects […]

Profit motive is eating the planet

The opening of the Propel Biofuels public pump was a smallish affair. The crowd of about thirty people appeared to consist mostly of investors, public relations personnel, some alternative energy enthusiasts, lots of press, and at least one lawyer. Because of the twelve-hour notice, and because it was in the middle of the week, only two protesters made it.

There is going to be a bigger protest this Saturday (October 20), same place, same time (high noon, at the pump located at Bernie's Auto Repair -- see map). Keep in mind this will not be a protest against Bernie, but against industrial agrodiesel. The pump is self-serve and open to the public. Bernie's is closed on Saturdays.

Consider dropping by for an hour or so to support those willing to publicly protest the for-profit takeover of the biosphere. It is remarkable how much impact protests can have. Imagine what a big one would do. Al Gore has called for civil disobedience. Some think Al Gore should be arrested. In any case, I'll be there along with my hybrid electric bike. Drop by and say hello.

It seemed to me that there were two main goals at the opening:

Ann Arbor, Mich., declares itself first U.S. city to use LEDs in all its streetlights

Ann Arbor, Mich., home to the main campus of the University of Michigan, announced that it intends to become the first U.S. city to convert all of its downtown streetlights to LEDs (light-emitting diodes). The energy-saving lights use half the energy and are expected to last five times as long. In two years, when the […]