Articles by Jason D Scorse
Jason Scorse, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Chair of the International Environmental Policy Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. His book What Environmentalists Need to Know About Economics is available at Amazon.
All Articles
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The Farm Bill
Looks like they've put a pretty sensible package together for the new Farm Bill. Let's see if the Democrats cave to special interests in the Farm Belt on this issue. Seems like another topic worth a call to your representatives. Thank goodness for unlimited cell phone minutes.
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But conservation isn’t sexy and doesn’t make headlines
Over the past few months, Grist has had some great pieces on biofuels, hydrogen power, and plug-in hybrids. Unfortunately, it's as if we've been debating the different types of low-flush toilets while ignoring the agricultural water subsidies that are responsible for 90 percent of the wasted water in America. Essentially, we've been distracted by supply-side opportunities and have dropped the ball on the demand side, which is exactly what the oil and car companies want.
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A sensible way to view them
Greg Easterbrook, whom I respect (even though I don't always agree with him) has an interesting op-ed in today's New York Times on carbon offsets.
He examines the issue and concludes that reducing greenhouse gases will be a boon for developing countries because it will be cheaper for us to pay them to reduce greenhouse gases than for us to.
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Possibly the most important environmental issue out there
Understanding the role subsidies play in environmental outcomes is crucial; I would argue that it is the most important environmental policy issue of all. So here's a very quick primer.
