Environmental Economics

Where's the outcry to take their profits?

From Breitbart:

Japan's second largest automaker Honda Motor Co. on Thursday reported record net profit for the six months to September and revised up its full-year forecast on strong sales overseas.

Greedy bastards.

Honda is one of the pioneers of environmentally friendly cars, which have proven to be major hits, particularly in the United States, at a time of soaring oil prices.

OK, maybe not.

6th Grade Econ Question of the Day

My daughter is studying econ in her sixth grade social studies class.  Here is her homework from last night.  Keep in mind this is printed from mass produced educational material and not something the teacher made up in isolation.  In other words--there are many middle schoolers being asked this same question.

Suppose that a new Harry Potter book comes out and yet again becomes a bestseller.  Thousands of people want to read this book.  Stores will order more copies of this book from the company that makes it.  To fill orders, the company increases the SUPPLY of these books in the marketplace.  The increased supply has been made in response to an increased DEMAND for the book.

1. If the supply of a new product is low and the demand is high, what will happen to the price?
2. If the supply of a product is high and the demand is low, what will happen to the price?

A perfectly valid excuse to post a picture of Bo Derek

Bo Derek, actress who starred in the movie "10," makes an argument for demand side intervention to reduce illegal wildlife trafficking.

Not only do the governments of the world need to redouble their protection efforts, but we must end the demand that drives [illegal wildlife trafficking].

The war on drugs has graphically demonstrated that focusing on enforcement and interdiction is not the only key to victory in this fight. We must also educate people and reduce demand for these products.

Hasn't history already proven this to be a really bad idea?

From the Financial Times:

Russia is introducing Soviet-style price controls on some basic foods in an effort to prevent spiralling prices from denting the Putin administration’s popularity ahead of parliamentary polls in December.

I blame global warming...but more likely it's another ethanol domino.

Russia’s move is the latest sign of surging agricultural prices becoming an international political issue.

Two wrongs are much less than one right

The Environmental Economics bounce:

Following my earlier post about the Mankiw effect, the guys at the Environmental Economics blog were wondering whether a link from their blog would have a similar effect on my site’s visitor stats. Here’s the answer — not quite such a big effect as Mankiw, but a nice little bounce to offset Mankiw decay.

The Mankiw bounce is the increase to 500, the decay goes down to 175 or so, and the env-econ bounce is 175 to 225.

Is Ohio a pollution haven?

After an extensive 2-minute google search, I found this explanation of the pollution haven hypothesis:

Pollution haven hypothesis argues that the industries that are highly pollution intensive i.e. dirty industries, have been migrating from developed economies to the developing world. It is argued that the environmental concerns of the developed economies caused them to enact strict environmental regulations, which have increased the cost of production of the dirty industries at home. On the other hand, the developing countries with their low wages and lax environmental regulations have been attractive alternative producers in these sectors.

Makes sense.  Now consider this:

Environmental officials in Ohio say they won't follow their counterparts in Kansas and deny a coal-fired power-plant permit based on carbon-dioxide pollution.

Does that make Ohio the state equivalent of a developing country?

Climate policy is not likely to increase jobs

NC emissions reductions could create 300K jobs:

Going green could bring some new jobs to North Carolina.

That was the conclusion of a report presented Tuesday to a legislative panel, which heard that the state could net 300,000 more jobs by 2020 by implementing energy efficiency programs and producing more renewable energy.

See below for some more details and a comment or two (warning: 1000+ words).

One reason why we have [insert disaster of choice here] is global warming

From The Hill.Com:

“One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.

Another reason to hate Duke

Drought turns up pressure on Duke Energy:

The Catawba River's biggest water user faces no withdrawal limits, answers to no local authority and allows 73 million gallons a day to vanish into thin air.

Duke Energy's five coal-fired and nuclear power plants gulp billions of gallons of water a day, drought or no drought. Most of it is returned to the river after cooling the steam that spins the plants' turbines.

I tried to resist the urge to post this but the urge was irresistable

From the Daily Grist:

The depressing reports are coming fast and furious. Germany-based Energy Watch Group says the world has already reached peak oil, and predicts that production will now fall by 7 percent a year. The Worldwatch Institute suggests that 21 cities that will have populations of 8 million or more by 2015 are highly vulnerable to havoc wreaked by rising seas. A new economic assessment from the University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research suggests that the U.S. faces hundreds of billions of dollars in weather-related damages in coming years if it doesn't get crackin' on climate-change mitigation. And an informal office poll suggests that no one got laid last night. Will the dry spell never end?