Environmental Economics

Fly less

From the inbox:

Hi John, really enjoy the blog and keep up the great work,

I think your Drive Less! mantra has evolved…Fly Less!  Or at least Fly Cheaper!

And who better than puffy daddy to lead the charge:

P. Diddy has vowed not to use his private jet until the price of oil comes down, and insists he will only use commercial airlines for his frequent travelling.

Sometimes I care so much it hurts

James Dearden, Lehigh University, reviews the WSJ article "San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?" in the Micro Weekly Review ("Easily Integrate These Wall Street Journal Articles in Your Class ").

Every little thing I do is magic*

From one of my favorite former students:

I know it's been a long time and you may not remember me with all your students year in and out, but I've been reading your environmental econ blog daily the past month. I just want to say thank you and keep up the good work! It's so refreshing to read intelligent things based on economic theory/principle. I usually balk 10 times a day when I listen to NPR/CNN/MSNBC, (or other people) and realize the things people are buying into (like drilling domestically will lower gas prices tomorrow). I live in Colorado now and as you may know congress just leased off the Roan Plateau to oil and gas. It's disappointing to see the impacts of misguided thinking influenced more by what the media decides to pick up than fact. Anyhow, I love the blog and it keeps me sane (and glad that I majored in Economics).

Weird: I love the blog and it keeps me insane.

*Note: In case you younger than, oh, 35 or so? A YouTube explanation of post title.

How many environmental economists are in your department?

With the addition of two newbies this fall, the Department of Economics at Appalachian State University has eight (i.e., 8)!

How'd we do that?

I-AA football

A little sports economics from the WaPo:

Coach Jerry Moore stopped on the edge of the Appalachian State [University] practice field one day this preseason, turned and gazed at what his football program has become. To his right, a new turf practice field rested next to an under-construction, 120,000-square-foot complex the height of a seven-story building. To his left, Moore saw a new upper deck for Kidd Brewer Stadium, packed with 4,400 new seats. In total, the view equated to a nearly $50 million flex of might.

Two negatives are mentioned in the article:

1. Too much success makes administrators think that I-AA football teams should move up to I-A (some might consider this a positive but ... ugh ... not me).
2. Too much success makes it is very difficult to schedule opponents.

[First] Hat tip: A guy who thinks a football is an oblate spheroid instead of a prolate spheriod.

New Env-Econ Feature: Create your own joke

John and I are always getting getting grief for making inappropriate jokes about semi-serious issues.  Now it's your turn.  An offical spouse of Env-Econ called me on my way in to work this morning with a tip toward the following story.  She thought it was ripe for a good joke but couldn't think of one.  I assured that Env-Econ readers would come through.  So don't let me down.  Submit your joke in the comment section.  We might even send the author of the best comment an official Env-Econ Drive Less! bumper sticker.

Crews are working this week to clean up 5,000 gallons of olive oil that leaked from a holding tank into [Baltimore's] Inner Harbor....The incident is posing a problem to wildlife above and below the water line.

"We have low oxygen levels to begin with, because we have so much nutrient pollution which comes from fertilizers and sewage," said Eliza Smith Steinmeier, a Baltimore Harbor waterkeeper. "And that sucks the oxygen out of the water, and we end up with fish kills."

Alan Williams of [the Maryland Department of the Environment ] said the olive oil isn't toxic for water birds like ducks and gulls, but that oil on their feathers takes their insulation away. One male duck got caught up in the mess and is said to be doing well, according to the MDE.

I voted for climate change regulation ... twice

A poll at Environmental Capital asks:

If Obama becomes president, which economic policy should he push first?

• Climate change regulation
• Overhauling health care
• Neither: He should focus on stabilizing the economy before moving to other issues.

Here are the results as of the date and time on this post:

Bovine Feng Shui

Not sure why, but I found this interesting:

Talk about animal magnetism, cows seem to have a built-in compass.

No bull: Somehow, cattle seem to know how to find north and south, say researchers who studied satellite photos of thousands of cows around the world.

Most cattle that were grazing or resting tended to align their bodies in a north-south direction, a team of German and Czech researchers reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And the finding held true regardless of what continent the cattle were on, according to the study led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

"The magnetic field of the Earth has to be considered as a factor," the scientists said.

This challenges scientists to find out why and how these animals align to the magnetic field, Begall said in an interview via e-mail.

"Of course, the question arises whether humans show also such a spontaneous behavior," she said, adding, what "consequences does it have for their health."

HYPLEUROCHILUS BERMUDENSIS

From a recent conversation with a fellow environmental economist:

EE #1: I'll take it on faith you are avoiding the HYPLEUROCHILUS BERMUDENSIS. Which, of course, would be a deal breaker.

EE #2 (me): No one has conducted research on HYPLEUROCHILUS BERMUDENSIS for at least 10-12 years. Since fisheries research is open access, it was researched to death during the late 1990s.

EE #1: That was exactly my point. I was thinking, "well, I can't approve this if we will have to sit through yet another seminar on HYPLEUROCHILUS BERMUDENSIS. I mean, I had enough of that in the late 90s. It would be like watching another Austin Powers sequel."

I just ordered a new book from Amazon.com

Economic Principals reviews Nordhaus' A Question of Balance:

No issue throws off more apprehension and confusion among a certain set than does global warming. Since the Norwegians last year propelled Al Gore’s film documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” into the stratosphere by awarding half a Nobel Peace Prize to the former presidential candidate ..., the proposition that continuing industrialization is going to require some extensive mitigation of its effects on the atmosphere has become much more widely accepted.

But what?  How much?  Where? And when?

A new book, A Question of Balance, by William Nordhaus, casts more intense light on these matters than any other. Nordhaus, of Yale University, is a master economist, a gifted expositor, a canny rhetoretician. Most important, he is a scientific diplomat.  He has been in constant touch for many years with a wide range of experts in other fields, not just natural scientists ... and social scientists ..., but designers of the human-built world as well .... It is unlikely that we will see a better framework for discussion of these issues for many years.