We haven’t written much about the environment since the credit markets got to be so much fun, but in the early days of the blog we did give it more attention than we do now, so this post isn’t as off topic as it might seem. With all the tooth-gnashing about oil, food, and greenhouse […]
Read more...Alan Blinder in today’s New York Times, argues for an ostensible stimulus package (hey, since more stimulus packages are probably in the offing, better register your preferences early) that will help the environment. But what I like about it is that it would cost so little that it barely rates in the “let’s goose the […]
Read more...There has been ample speculation on whether the Saudis are truly close to tapped out as far as current oil production is concerned. The overwhelming majority believes that declining production is due to falling yields from their biggest oilfield, Gwahar, which has not been fully compensated for by increased output from other fields. A minority […]
Read more...Some optimists on the agriculture front, such as Nobel prize winning economist Gary Becker, have argued that increasing the productivity of farming would solve the problem of skyrocketing grain and food commodity prices. Only roughly 30% of crop-raising is done according to advanced techniques; if much of the rest of the land under cultivation was […]
Read more...PhysOrg reports that Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that pollution could make certain parts of the country uninhabitable, possibly as soon as a decade from now. As much as China’s horrific pollution gets occasional attention in the West, Russia’s environmental woes win less scrutiny. Yet a seven-year study published in 2006 found that three of […]
Read more...Now one might ask why there is anyone trying to move development forward in California, given the impressive downward price trajectory of real estate over the last year. We’ll take as a given that such a big state can have pocket of opportunity even in a bad market. But this article highlights an issue that […]
Read more...Gideon Rachman in “We cannot go on eating like this” in the Financial Times, points out the increasing heated discussion between advanced and emerging economies over resource issues, particularly food. The positions of the two camps are fairly easy to set forth: the West says, “You can’t have what we have, it’ll ruin the planet,” […]
Read more...Ooh, just when you though you had your had a pretty complete list of Looming Problems, the officialdom goes and increases it. An article in the current issue of Science reports that nitrogen is a significant culprit and environmental degradation. Nitrogen pollution is a serious matter because there isn’t at the moment any obvious way […]
Read more...Dear readers, I will give more measured impressions of the Milken Conference in a day or so, when I it is over (we have another day, but the last day is far thinner in terms of offerings) and have had a day or so to reflect. However, to give a highlight, a subtext was was […]
Read more...There’s a good article at the New York Times, “Movable Feast Carries a Pollution Price Tag,” on the issue of CO2 emissions resulting from the delivery of foodstuffs around the world. The article discusses at some length how international fuel tax breaks have facilitated this trade. Let’s face it, many foods are low value per […]
Read more...Consider this example: In 1997, British Petroleum decided to lower its carbon emissions below the 1990 level by 2010. It achieved the goal in 3 years rather than 13 at a cost of $20 million. Oh, and it happened to save $650 million. With that sort of calculus, you’d think that every big corporation would […]
Read more...Paul Krugman, commenting on a Wall Street Journal article that invoked, then tried to dismiss, concerns about resource scarcity, defended Malthus: Malthus was right about the whole of human history up until his own era. Sumerian peasants in the 30th century BC lived on the edge of subsistence; so did French peasants in the 18th […]
Read more...Clever, but also surprising (at least for those of us who don’t ponder these matters deeply). Hat tip Gristmill: Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered […]
Read more...Fresh water is increasingly scarce, particularly in China. The average annual supply, per capita, is 348 cubic meters. The UN defines anything below 1000 as a water shortage. Beijing residents have only 250 cubic meters. Plans to divert water from the northeast provinces to Beijing and some hydropower projects will have dire consequences for millions […]
Read more...Jeffrey Sachs, in an article for Project Syndicate (hat tip Mark Thoma), argues that private sector efforts alone won’t yield sufficient progress in achieving needed progress on the environmental and anti-poverty fronts. Part of this, of course, is the classic problem of externalities: carbon emissions are free to the perps, but impose costs on everyone. […]
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