Environmental Economics

Benefits and costs of the acid rain program

I just finished reading (9:15 am) the "fresh look" benefit-cost analysis of the acid rain program paper that we referred to in a post last week. My environmental economics class meets at 10 am and we're starting benefit-cost analysis. So, this post is a clear example of how blogging improves teaching!

Uncommonly Bad: Why I Will No Longer Support the Sierra Club

I’ve considered myself an environmentalist for almost 20 years, and during this time I’ve been a member of many environmental organizations. For my birthday a couple of years ago my brother got me a membership to the Sierra Club, which surprisingly I had never joined. I soon received my first issue of Sierra Magazine and over the course of the year was generally pleased with the articles, finding them generally well-written and poignant. I renewed my membership in 2005.

In June of this year I received the July-August issue of Sierra Magazine and in it was an article entitled, “The Common Good”, by Jonathan Rowe of the Tomales Bay Institute. The title sounded interesting, but after just a couple paragraphs I was surprised that the article had made its way into the magazine. It is little more than a shoddy, poorly-reasoned polemic against the field of economics and the “market-system.” It contains many glaring mischaracterizations of economics and amazingly, in a bizarre feat of circular logic, the author cites methods developed and implemented by economists over many decades as potential solutions to environmental problems that supposedly are beyond the scope of economics. At the same time, the author continually fails to adequately define his terms or offer persuasive evidence to support his grandiose claims. In short, this article appeared anomalous in a magazine that (despite many legitimate polemics against Bush Administration policies) had stayed clear of knee-jerk liberalism and the dubious ideological prescriptions that accompany it. (For the record, Mr. Rowe he has agreed to debate me at the Institute where I teach and from all indications he appears to be a nice man).

Happy Halloween from EDF

Just when you thought it was safe to enjoy a holiday (Have a green Halloween):

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) recommends several ideas for trick-or-treaters and treat givers this Halloween to add more green to the orange and black holiday.

Instead of having fun make sure that your kid carries the candy in a pillow case (none of those fun plastic pumpkins), make a costume from old clothes (think, hobo), don't use paper plates at your Halloween party (and none of that highly packaged brown and green glass), give away crappy candy (less wrapping) and use public transportation for trick or treating (huh?).

"Most of all," says Roberts (EDF Senior Scientist), "use this holiday to think about your everyday habits and actions to reduce waste 365 days a year. Individual actions can make a huge difference in our future."

In other words, Happy Halloween!

And we hope you enjoy our scary colors (we'll go back to the focus group-tested green and gray on Nov 1).

TypePad Scheduled Maintenance

From Typepad:

Over the next few weeks ending in mid November, Six Apart is moving our TypePad operations to a new data center. This move will enable us to add needed additional capacity and system improvements. Please read Mena's Post for some insights.

The TypePad Application will be taken off-line for maintenance Saturday October 29th from 9:00 pm to midnight PDT. During this time, your weblog will be available for reading and viewing, but you won't be able to log in to TypePad to post, and visitors will not be able to comment on weblogs.

CO2 Market Working in Europe

In the news:  Reutters is reporting that the EU's carbon dioxide trading program is expected to trade over 200 million tonnes of CO2 for the year. 

I Declare Myself to be an Actor

Call this a rant--but hopefully with a relevant point.  One of my biggest pet peaves is celebrities choosing to use their celebrity to forward causes.  Simply because they have exposure to media outlets and a mass audience they think that they can speak on any topic.  A recent example...

Frank on Schelling

Robert Frank devotes his NYT Economic Scene column to the co-Nobel Prize winner (Of Hockey Players and Housing Prices). He makes an interesting observation about preferences and values that has implications for environmental valuation. The idea is that what people tell you about their values might be more revealing than their behavior. This is an appalling notion to economists who have always believed that behavior reveals values, and talk is cheap.

We generally steal the best fun ideas

The Big Picture blog is worth $478k. Env-Econ is worth a bit less.

My blog is worth $73,390.20.
How much is your blog worth?

Clear Skies and Legislative and Regulatory Analyses Released

EPA's Clear Skies analysis press release:

(Washington, D.C.-October 27, 2005) Administrator Stephen L. Johnson today announced the results of the most detailed, comprehensive analysis of air ever conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The legislative and regulatory analyses compared several cap-and-trade approaches aimed at reducing sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Getting busy about the oil profit problem

The oil companies are reporting big profits. From the WSJ's Evening Wrap (10/26):

In other key earnings reports, oil titan ConocoPhillips said high oil prices boosted its third-quarter profit 89% from a year ago to $3.8 billion, beating forecasts. Revenue at the No. 3 U.S. oil major jumped 43% to $49.7 billion.

What can a politician do about windfall profits?