Environmental Economics

Environmental economics blogs in REEP

From the inbox:

A new issue of Review of Environmental Economics and Policy has been made available:

Winter 2008; Vol. 2, No. 1
URL: http://reep.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol2/issue1/index.dtl?etoc

The first thing I always do is check out Kerry Smith's Reflections on the Literature column. Here are the opening lines:

Three "Reflections on the Literature" columns written in under a year—wow, I didn't know I had it in me! This was my first thought when I was reminded that a third column was due. I feel like a "virtual blogger." So in that spirit, I decided to look at the two environmental economics blogs that I ask my students to read to see how I might make this third column a little different.1

And here is footnote 1:

The blogs I am referring to are Tim Haab and John Whitehead's (www.env-econ.net) and Matt Kahn's Environmental and Urban Economics site (www.greeneconomics.blogspot.com).

Rock and roll! Yet, alas:

I found the inspiration I needed in Matt Kahn's postings in November 2006. He suggested in his environmental and urban economics blog that many of the most important questions in environmental economics are empirical; it is through the interaction of theory and what the data "tell us" that we make progress or begin to ask better questions. As a result of Matt's comment, I decided to present some new empirical work as part of my discussion.

Why herbicides?

Last week, I mentioned the nationwide recall of "Miracle-Gro Shake 'n' Feed With Weed Preventer All Purpose Plant Food."  In response, I facetiously asked

Why do I care?  Marysville, Ohio is the town next to Dublin, Ohio, the suburbanly sprawled city I call home.  Scotts is a major employer in the area.  Dublin's slogan is "It's Greener in Dublin."  How are we going to stay greener without fertilizer?

An astute commenter asked:

What has fertilizer got to do with herbicide?

My response:

Weed n' feed. Green lawns require no dandelions.

I now offer pictorial proof.  The image below the jump illustrates the effect of no herbicide lawn treatment in central Ohio. 

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

From Ray's Weather Center:

A cold front moving through this morning will set the stage for an abrupt weather changes. Expect morning rain, but the sun will make an appearance this afternoon. Tonight, much colder air will overtake the region with a few snow flurries possible especially on mountaintops near the TN/NC line.

From The Carpenters:

Talkin' to myself and feelin' old
Sometimes I'd like to quit
Nothing ever seems to fit
Hangin' around
Nothing to do but frown
Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.

"Don't blog about Fight Club"

The middle school kids are getting in on the act:

This increase in income has lead to more cars in China. Where you would have seen mostly bikes a few years before now you see cars.  In some places bikes have been outlawed on the streets.  More cars lead to an increase in oil demand.

...

China’s oil consumption is rivaling the US overall consumption.  China’s increased demand has increased oil prices to an alarming high.  Gas prices in the U.S. have risen to $3.50 a gallon.  It will rise again soon.  If China would allow bikes back in all places, maybe it would lower the use of cars.

Andy Groothuis
Middle School Kid

Note: The post title is also due to Andy Groothuis.

Marine Resource Economics listed in SSCI

From the inbox:

APRIL 2008
MARINE RESOURCE ECONOMICS LISTED IN
SOCIAL SCIENCES CITATION INDEX® - WEB OF SCIENCE

Marine Resource Economics is now listed among the following Thomson Scientific products:

Social Sciences Citation Index® (Web of Science)
Science Citation Index Expanded™ (Web of Science)
Current Contents®/Social and Behavioral Sciences
Current Contents®/Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences

The Web of Science provides seamless access to current and retrospective multidisciplinary information from approximately 8,700 of the most prestigious, high-impact research journals in the world.  Users can also navigate to electronic full-text journal articles. http://scientific.thomson.com/products/wos/

Current Contents Connect® is a multidisciplinary current awareness Web resource providing access to complete bibliographic information from over 8,000 of the world's leading scholarly journals and more than 2,000 books.  http://scientific.thomson.com/products/ccc/

AS AN AUTHOR THIS MEANS:

• Increased visibility and citation of your work
• Elevated recognition and status of your research

Marine Resource Economics is the leading journal covering a range of natural resource use and economic and policy issues in the global marine environment

The Honoring Tom Tietenberg blog

Check out the Honoring Tom Tietenberg blog:

After 31 years of teaching at Colby College, Tom Tietenberg is retiring! This site was created to collect messages from current and former students and colleagues. We plan to present this blog to Tom on April 15, following his last public lecture as a Colby professor, "Emissions Trading: From Economic Concept to Global Implementation", the Economics Department annual Grossman lecture. Please take a moment, write a message, and help us wish Tom well in his next chapter in life.

There are 265 comments.

More anecdotal evidence that people do react to higher gas prices

Click here for a video claiming that the demand curve for gas does indeed slope downward.

Take the "Tech" out of Technorati

Technorati current lists our URL as http://env-econ.net and not http://www.env-econ.net. Since the former goes to a Network Solutions "under construction" page I sent an email asking if they could add the "www." Here is what I heard back:

Hello,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in getting back to you. We are currently experiencing a backlog in Support, but are working very hard to address everyone.

Unfortunately at this time it's not possible to change our system from env-econ.net to www.env-econ.net.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have other questions.

Thank you for using Technorati!

[name]
Customer Support Specialist
Technorati

Here is the link to our Technorati page: http://www.technorati.com/blogs/www.env-econ.net?reactions. I can't imagine this helps our ranking at 26econ.com.

Sometimes being the recipient of a man crush can be awkward

Far be it for me to judge, but 3 (count em': one, two, three) of the last 5 posts at Common Tragedies are about me and John.  Easy boys.

More ethanol dominoes*

From Cecilia's Blog at PhD Comics:

Wow, Costco and Sam's Club are limiting how much rice their customers can buy. That and the price increases for other grains sound like signs of the apocalypse to me. Damn you, biofuels!

I must admit that I'm part of the group of rice consumers who are picky about the kind of rice they will buy. White jasmine rice is my favorite (I'm not very particular about the brand as long as it tastes good), but lately I've changed my rice consumption to be half brown rice, half white jasmine rice, because brown rice is supposed to be better for me.

Oh, and instant rice is horrible! No amount of convenience is worth the taste trade-off of instant rice.

Cecilia is described as:

The perfect grad student and a chocoholic, it took years for Cecilia to admit she is, in fact, a geek.

*Stealing Tim's title when he is grumpy makes me smile.