Climate Climate & Energy

A package of good stories

Rolling Stone has a package of stories on Al Gore’s climate crusade in the current issue. First up is a long interview with the man himself , including this nice tidbit: What figure in the administration, other than the president himself, do you hold most responsible for standing in the way of meaningful change on […]

Arguments supporting government subsidies of agrofuels are getting polished

This is my formal rebuttal to David Morris's "case for corn-based fuel." I'm using my access to the bully pulpit to pull it out of the comments field.

How did the use of ethanol end up alongside tyranny and torture as an evil to be conquered?

That's easy. A whole lot of real smart people have been giving corn ethanol a lot of thought and have found that "an evil to be conquered" isn't a bad description. In smaller quantities, it does smaller amounts of damage, but as quantities increase, so does the damage. I mean, what's not to like about a fuel that milks billions from taxpayers, increases the cost of food all around the world, exacerbates the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, and returns no more energy than it produces?

So says a new report

Everything you could possibly want to know about nuclear power -- and its (limited) potential as a potential climate solution -- can be found in the new Keystone Center Report with the less-than-captivating title "Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding."

Reuters is confused in its article on the report, "Nuclear Power Can't Curb Global Warming -- Report," and actually overstates the case for nuclear:

A hearing before the Science Committee

There’s a hearing on solar power today in the House Science Committee. Sounds like they’re focusing on concentrating solar power and thermal storage — smart. Note this: [Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Vice-Chair] Rep. [Gabrielle] Giffords expects to soon introduce "The Solar Energy Research and Advancement Act of 2007" to address issues in solar research, […]

Search Engine Engine Search

Google pledges $10 million for plug-in hybrid research Google has gone all googly-eyed over plug-in hybrid vehicles, pledging more than $10 million in funding for the nascent technology. At a sunny photo op at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters yesterday, company officials showed off a handful of Toyota Prius and Ford Escape cars that had […]

Irony Of Iron Ease

U.S. EPA challenges California company’s plankton-seeding plan A California company’s plan to fight climate change by seeding the ocean with iron dust is drawing fire from the U.S. EPA, which reportedly woke from a nap with the vague feeling that it ought to be doing something regulatory. The company, Planktos, will use the iron to […]

Scarce Fell On Alabama

Crops, neighborly relations suffer in Southeastern U.S. drought A severe drought is gripping most of the Southeastern U.S., threatening crops, inspiring prayer, and turning neighbors against each other. “It’s one of the worst droughts in living memory in the Southeast at this point,” said Doug LeComte, a drought specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric […]

Worst music video ever

Oh. My. God. Question: is this better or worse than “Bush Was Right”? (via Hugg)

The paper, like everybody else who doesn’t stand to benefit, doesn’t like it

The lead editorial in the Washington Post today beats liquid coal about the head and shoulders, using all the familiar arguments. Here’s a challenge: somebody out there send me a thoughtful defense of liquid coal that doesn’t issue from the coal industry, a paid shill of the coal industry, or a legislator from a state […]

Discount rates: Boring but important

This post will address two questions. What exactly is the discount rate? Did Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist with the World Bank, use the wrong discount rate in his landmark 2006 report, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change?

These may seem like abstruse economic questions, but for analyzing the cost-benefit analysis of climate action -- whether we must act urgently or at leisure -- the discount rate is probably the single most important factor. The discount rate basically represents the so-called time value of money, how much more $100 is worth to us today than next year.

A high discount rate means we would much rather have money today than in the future. The issue is complicated by the fact that society should have a lower discount rate than individuals, since a high "social" discount rate essentially means that we don't value future generations much.

I must confess that even though I minored in economics and have followed the discount rate issue closely for years, after reading various recent blogs by economists, I realized I didn't really understand it, particularly as it applies to climate change. I was not alone -- The New York Times completely misunderstood Stern's choice of discount rate.

Since discount rates are probably as important to the climate debate as feedbacks, I would very much commend the work of Australian economist John Quiggin. He explains why Stern's choice of a low discount rate is fully justified -- and why most critics are either wrong or confused or both -- in an essay, "Stern and the critics on discounting" (PDF) and a lengthy blog post, "Discounting the Future yet Again." The blog post has a fascinating quote from an Environmental Science & Policy article, "Discounting and the social cost of carbon" on the PTRP (Pure Time Rate of Preference):