Articles by Clark Williams-Derry

Still more reasons to eat local and lay off the beef

Increasingly, consumers are trying to reduce the environmental impacts of the foods they eat. But it's not so easy to know what to do, in part because of the bewildering array of food choices the market offers, but also because it's hard to know what food choices carry the biggest impact.

This nifty study tries to clear away some of the murk by tackling a fairly straightforward question: If you care about the climate, which is more important, what kind of food you eat, or where that food is grown?

To summarize the findings: All else being equal, locally grown food is friendlier to the climate than food grown half a continent away. But if you're looking for a single food choice that will help curb your climate impact, your best bet is to stay away from cows!

Are the CGE models useful for predicting the effects of climate policy?

My pal Peter Dorman is looking for answers: Does the class of economic forecasting tools known as "computable general equilibrium models" (aka CGE models) have any documented track record of success?

This may seem like an arcane point, but it's quite relevant to climate policy. Government agencies throughout North America are using CGE models to forecast the economic impacts of various cap-and-trade proposals. But many academic economists -- Dorman among them -- think that the CGE models are built on sand. Says Dorman:

Interesting research findings on wealth and happiness

University of British Columbia researchers have put a price tag on happiness. The good news: It's available for the low price of $5.

The better news: You can't spend that money on yourself. Instead, to get the most smiles per dollar, you have to spend money on other people.

Dr. Elizabeth Dunn at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and colleagues found that [experimental subjects] report significantly greater happiness if they spend money "pro-socially" -- that is on gifts for others or on charitable donations -- rather than spending on themselves.

The researchers apparently looked at three different kinds of studies: a nationwide survey, a specific study of how employees spent their bonuses, and a controlled experiment on psychology undergrads. In all cases, the evidence showed that giving money away made people happier. In fact, donating as little as $5 was enough to boost happiness on any given day. But the amount of money people spent on themselves had no appreciable effect on how happy they were.

In short, new research confirms an old adage: it really is better to give than to receive.

But, on a somewhat more dismal note, there's another route to convert money into happiness: choose friends who aren't as wealthy as you are.

What’s right with the WCI?

Last week, my colleague Eric de Place dinged the Western Climate Initiative -- an effort by Western states and provinces to develop a carbon market with a strict, declining cap -- for kicking the can down the road on transportation fuels.

Of course, the WCI has not ruled out the possibility of capping emissions from the transportation sector. They've just delayed a decision until they run some more economic analysis. So there's no reason to gnash our teeth over a lost opportunity -- not yet, anyway. Still, it's hard to tell whether the glass is half full (transportation fuels haven't been ruled out -- hooray!) or half empty (transportation isn't clearly in yet -- boo!).

However, I listened in on a WCI climate conference call yesterday -- and I gotta say, I really like what they've done with electricity!

The WCI floated a draft proposal last week. And in my view, at least, the glass is about as full as it can get: