Environmental Economics

Final IM basketball tourney update

From the sent folder:

Thanks for the phone call last night [1]. My IM team was getting ready to start the final four playoff game when I hear the message ring [2]. I have a babysitter at home so I figured I better answer it. Whilst doing so, I had to wave our substitute in to start the game. So, as a result of your ill-timed call, I didn't start the final four game and our team lost.

By the way, in answer to your question, I've mailed my unused SEC tickets [3].

References:

1. Sarc.
2. Another IM basketball tourney update.
3. I'm screwed out of $125.

They like me...they really like me...

I haven't tooted my own horn in a while  So here goes.  Winter quarter teaching evaluation are out.  My student teaching evaluations so far this academic year:

1. AEDE 200: Undergraduate principles of microeconomics.  Enrollment: 68.  Overall rating: 4.9/5.
2. AEDE 801: PhD applied econometrics.  Enrollment: 16.  Overall Rating: 4.6/5.  Two found me less than intellectually stimulating.  Don't they know it's econometrics for crapssake!
3. AEDE 831: Masters/PhD Environmental and Resource Economics.  Enrollment 7.  Overall Rating: 5/5.  Yep, you read that right.

My next teaching goal is to get a chili pepper next to my name on ratemyprofessors.com.  I might have to dye my hair for that though. 

Now if I could just figure out how to pick NCAA teams, I'd be a happy man. 

Poop Quote of the Week

It's National Scoop the Poop week!  From the inbox:

“Pet waste is a serious problem, which has only recently been gaining the national attention it deserves,” said Matt ‘Red’ Boswell, CEO (Chief Excrement Officer) of Pet Butler. “National Scoop the Poop Week was created to help raise awareness of the negative effects of dog waste and to promote the professionals who are scooping poop to keep America beautiful and healthy.”

The line for lawyers starts over there...just behind Peter Angelos*

From The Independent:

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by   an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid   using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone   industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their   radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet   published of the health risks.

...Professor Khurana – a top neurosurgeon who has received 14 awards over the   past 16 years, has published more than three dozen scientific papers –   reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones. He has put   the results on a brain surgery website, and a paper based on the research is   currently being peer-reviewed for publication in a scientific journal.

Aren't academic papers supposed to be peer-reviewed before they are covered in the press?  Otherwise, isn't it just a blog post? 

*Peter Angelos is the inept owner of the Baltimore Orioles.  He made his money through asbestos litigation. 

Tourney Pool Update

In an unprecedented tournament--this is the first time all four top seeds have advanced to the final four--playing the odds is paying off for Jim Casey and James Hamilton (currently 1st and 2nd in the EnvEcon pool).   In the EnvEcon vs. CommonTragedies smackdown,   I have a slight lead over Dan Hall but Dan looks like he played the odds and picked the tops seeds to advance--so he has more possible points remaining.  Where's the fun in that?

Oh, and whither John?

Forecast those corn prices

Big decison: how much corn to plant?

As spring planting nears, farmers are making a choice that could affect what Americans pay for everything from car fuel to chicken wings.

Another bogus climate change economic simulation

From Common Tragedies:

Today, Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies posted a new website developed by economics professor Robert Repetto. In a way that anybody can easily understand, it synthesizes the results of thousands of policy simulations from 25 economic models being used to predict the economic impacts of reducing U.S. carbon emissions. To try this new website, just click on http://www.climate.yale.edu/seeforyourself. This website identifies the seven key assumptions accounting for most of the differences in the models’ predictions. It shows that even under the most unfavorable assumptions regarding costs, the U.S. economy is predicted to continue growing robustly as carbon emissions are reduced. Under more favorable assumptions, the economy would even grow more rapidly if emissions are reduced than if they are allowed to continue to increase as in the past. Even better, this new website allows site visitors to decide how likely they think each of the seven key assumptions are, and on that basis see for themselves what economic impacts all the leading economic models would predict, if carbon emissions are reduced by specific percentages over the next two decades. If you visit this site, you can make your own assumptions about the key factors that will influence the costs of stopping climate change and see the results.

I took the survey and under my assumptions (1, .8, .4, .7, 1, 1, .6 and 20%), as advertised above, the economy will grow faster than under business as usual (click on the thumbnail). I don't believe this can happen due to the concepts of scarcity and opportunity cost. Please explain. Will gains in labor productivity explode (are Americans that unhealthy right now?). Will new technology lead to cold fusion?

I'm more reasonable than the cap & trade fear-mongers

From Terra Rossa (where conservatives consider a new energy future):

One of the most common concerns raised by opponents of cap & trade is it will cost a lot of Americans their jobs. Given folks’ anxiety about the state of our economy today those concerns, whether true or not, have an impact.

EPA's SO2 auction results

EPA Announces Results of the Sixteenth Annual Sulfur Dioxide Auction:

(3/27/08) On March 25, 2008, EPA held the acid rain auction giving private citizens, brokers and power plants the opportunity to buy and sell sulfur dioxide (SO2) allowances, as part of the cap and trade program to reduce acid rain. When fully implemented in 2010, the Acid Rain Program will have cut SO2 emissions by 50 percent from 1990 levels. ...

The auction includes two types of allowances: 125,000 offered for use in 2008 and 125,000 additional allowances offered seven years in advance to help provide stability in planning for capital investments. These advance allowances will be available for use in 2015. The number of allowances a source purchases will not permit them to emit SO2 at a level that would violate the health-based national ambient air quality standard. The weighted average of winning bids for 2008 is $389.91.

32 of the 125,000 bids in the spot market were purchased by various groups (e.g., Acid Rain Retirement Fund, Bates College Environmental Economics) for the purposes of taking a ton of SO2 off the market.

Another IM basketball tourney update

From the inbox:

We had an impressive win last night.  We mercy ruled the team who at that point was 7-0.  Final score was 58-34.  I think they were a good team but some nights your shots just don't fall, just ask Jerry about that!!!  With that win, we are now in the Final Four!  Our next game is this sunday 3/30 at 7:30 pm.  Be there!!!!!!!!

It's going to be hard to focus on basketball with all of the final 4 hoopla going on around me.