economics
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Moving beyond vintage-differentiated regulation
A common feature of many environmental policies in the United States is vintage-differentiated regulation (VDR), under which standards for regulated units are fixed in terms of the units’ respective dates of entry, with later vintages facing more stringent regulation. In the most common application, often referred to as “grandfathering,” units produced prior to a specific […]
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Every job can be green, part one
Fortunately for your humble correspondent, Van Jones was so busy when the editors of the new book, Mandate for Change: Policies and leadership for 2009 and beyond, were looking for an author for their chapter about green jobs, that they turned to me instead. This is part one of three posts that will serialize my […]
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Republicans claim carbon bill impact on families that is off by — no kidding — 98%
So Republicans have been going around saying that Obama’s cap-and-trade program will cost every American household $3,128 a year. Wait, did I say cap-and-trade program? I mean “light switch tax.” Because you’ll pay a tax every time you turn on your light! Get it?! And so comes the latest wet burp from the rotting corpse […]
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Global warming denier Avery doesn’t know the difference between growth and growth rate
The American Daily has just published this laughably wrong piece of disinformation by long-term global warming denier Dennis Avery, “Now CO2 is Declining as well as Temperatures.” Before AD and Avery take it down, let’s look at what passes for analysis among the deniers. The piece opens: The atmospheric CO2 levels at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa […]
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Why even strong climate action has such a low total cost — one tenth of a penny on the dollar
Since the nation is about to launch into a long debate about the costs of climate action versus the cost of inaction, here is an overview of the major cost analyses of global climate action. In its definitive 2007 synthesis report of the scientific literature, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [PDF] concluded: In 2050, […]
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Shoddy economics at The New York Times
Joe Romm has done a pretty thorough trashing of Matt Wald’s recent New York Times piece. Herein, I pile on. This is a shoddy enough piece of journalism to deserve it. Like Joe, I’ve talked to Matt Wald before, and generally I find him to be a good writer on energy. He’s capable of much […]
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When the global Ponzi scheme collapses (circa 2030), the only jobs left will be green
In The U.S. requires a strong climate bill to remain competitive, Part 1, I reprised the thesis first documented by Harvard’s Michael Porter — strong, leading edge, pro-innovation regulations promote national competitiveness. As President Obama said last week: We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right […]
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Whatever its virtues, the gas tax is nearing the end of its life
The post on the mileage tax stirred up a lot of reaction, much of it negative. As it happens, the state of Oregon recently wrapped up a successful trial of a mileage tax system, so for the next few posts I’m going to be relying heavily on an excellent final report on the system (PDF) […]
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Don’t make too much of current energy prices; they are disconnected from fundamentals
There is a fair amount of hand-wringing over the recent collapse in energy prices which — while academically interesting — is largely irrelevant to larger macro forces. Here then a quick observation that is critically important and horribly misunderstood throughout our current energy, environmental, and economic conversation: current energy prices have very little to do […]