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Articles by Clark Williams-Derry

Clark Williams-Derry is research director for the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, a nonprofit sustainability think tank working to promote smart solutions for the Pacific Northwest. He was formerly the webmaster for Grist.

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  • The shrinking-population scare is mostly hype

    Demographers are projecting that population in some parts of the globe -- Russia, the Ukraine, Japan, much of Western Europe -- are set to decline over the next 50 years or so. Of course, talk of a shrinking population seems to send some people into a panic, which is why you occasionally see stories decrying the new "population crisis" -- not too many people, but too few.

    The Economist has this to say about the doomsayers:

    People love to worry -- maybe it's a symptom of ageing populations -- but the gloom surrounding population declines misses the main point. The new demographics that are causing populations to age and to shrink are something to celebrate. Humanity was once caught in the trap of high fertility and high mortality. Now it has escaped into the freedom of low fertility and low mortality. Women's control over the number of children they have is an unqualified good -- as is the average person's enjoyment, in rich countries, of ten more years of life than they had in 1960. (Emphasis added.)

    That seems just right to me. And the article makes some other worthwhile points too -- including that economic output per capita is a far better measure of the health of an economy than total output. Measured by total output, a place with a shrinking population might seem to be in economic decline, even if the average person is getting wealthier.

    (Of course, even better than total output per capita would be a measure that looks at how the poor and middle class are faring. Still, policymakers should keep in mind that per-capita measures of economic health are more significant than total output.)

  • California dreamin’, on such a winter’s day…

    Just a few days ago, I posted on a mileage-based car insurance program that recently made its debut in Japan -- and hoped that this could hasten the introduction of a similar system on this side of the Pacific.

    Now, the LA Times reports on an announcement by California's insurance commissioner that he's planning to ...

    ... propose rules forcing auto insurers to set rates based on the driving records and miles driven by motorists, and to give less weight to where drivers live -- a change that could affect the pocketbooks of 23 million California drivers.

    The proposal was embraced by consumer and civil rights advocates who have long complained that city dwellers -- especially in minority neighborhoods -- pay higher rates than drivers with similar records who live in rural towns and suburbs. [Emphasis added.]

    Seems like the U.S. didn't have to wait for Japan's lead after all. Obviously, this is not yet a done deal. But it's still promising -- because it could make the automotive insurance system fairer to people who don't drive much (notably women, the poor, and city-dwellers), and because it could give all drivers the opportunity to control their insurance costs by driving less.

  • Japan Gets PAYD

    Here's a little something I'll be keeping an eye on: Japanese insurance company Aioi has started to offer pay-by-the-mile car insurance. (See page 2 of this pdf.)  This is an especially nifty development, since it means that Aioi will be working out some kinks in the technology (the company will verify mileage with a device installed in policyholders' cars), which could help PAYD make the leap across the Pacific.

  • Gas fees: The good, the bad, and the curious

    I'm not sure, exactly, whether this news is promising or disappointing: The San Jose Mercury News reported last week that environmental advisers to Governor Schwarzenegger are calling for a new fee on gasoline. Money raised by the measure would fund incentives for reducing climate-warming emissions.

    The good news here is that they're considering fees on gasoline in the first place.

    The bad news is that the proposed fees are tiny -- just 2.5 cents per gallon, which isn't enough to affect consumption more than a nominal amount.

    The good news is that the fees will go to a good cause: There are a lot of inexpensive ways to reduce emissions, so the fees, as small as they are, could do a lot of good -- especially considering that California uses about 15 billion gallons of gasoline per year, so a 2.5 cent per gallon fee would raise $375 million annually.

    The bad news is that opponents are already up in arms, blasting the idea as an unnecessary new tax on gas.