Environmental Economics

Quote of the day

Mark Story:

So now The Streak has reached 26 years old, has gone on eHarmony and is looking for a nice girl for a long-term relationship.

via www.kentucky.com

Tennessee beat Kentucky yesterday for the 26th year in row. Ugh.

Daily demand and supply (income and substitution effects)

Christmas tree day was yesterday. A favorite holiday activity of city people is to drive to the mountains the day after Thanksgiving, buy a tree, shop downtown, eat out and head home. We counted 32 trees on the tops of cars in about an hour of driving around. It sounds like the export trees are cheaper than usual:

Holiday shoppers are discovering retail prices of Christmas trees in the Triangle [i.e., Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill] at their lowest point in several years as tree sellers compete with artificial trees and contend with an ailing economy.

At the State Farmers Market in Raleigh on Friday, tree vendors said they were doing well if they kept this year's prices flat with last year's. Not all vendors could keep that vow, and customers were finding deals.

The weekend after Thanksgiving traditionally kicks off the season, with home-improvement retailers, cut-your-own farms, church lots and corner stands selling thousands of trees. ...

Even small price changes could have a broad economic impact. North Carolina is the nation's second-largest producer of Christmas trees. Nearly 20 percent come from this state.

Christmas tree prices depend on the vendor, quality of a tree and size.

I'll get my tree in a couple weeks. It will be fabulous.

I'd like the filet at McDonald's prices please

Late last month, J.D. Power and Associates issued a forecast saying that hybrid and all-electric vehicles would have 7.3 percent worldwide market share in 2020. Based on this outlook, the research group said demand for green vehicles had been "overhyped."

Bartlett thinks his survey results generally agree with the J.D. Power forecast, showing that customers are more aware of hybrids and willing to consider them, but that they're held back by financial considerations.

via www.dispatch.com

Norfolk and way pal

This should have been a case study in Climatopolis (I've read through page 200 or so, so maybe it is coming later). The article points out that Norfolk, built on filled in marsh, has sunk more since 1930 than New Orleans. Yikes, but they seem to be trying to address the problem with adaptation (in a costly way):

Larchmont residents have relentlessly lobbied the city to address the [sea level rise] problem, and last summer it broke ground on a project to raise the street around the “u” by 18 inches and to readjust the angle of the storm drains so that when the river rises, the water does not back up into the street. The city will also turn a park at the edge of the river back into wetlands — it is now too saline for lawn grass to grow anyway. The cost for the work on this one short stretch is $1.25 million.

The expensive reclamation project is popular in Larchmont, but it is already drawing critics who argue that cities just cannot handle flooding in such a one-off fashion. To William Stiles, executive director of Wetlands Watch, a local conservation group, the project is well meaning but absurd. Mr. Stiles points out that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has already spent $144,000 in recent years to raise each of six houses on the block.

At this pace of spending, he argues, there is no way taxpayers will recoup their investment.

“If sea level is a constant, your coastal infrastructure is your most valuable real estate, and it makes sense to invest in it,” Mr. Stiles said, “but with sea level rising, it becomes a money pit.”

via www.nytimes.com

Earmark ban quote of the day

Rep.-elect Renee Ellmers of North Carolina:

...said she would have to look at each proposal closely before deciding whether it merits support despite an earmark ban.

"That's the hard question," she said.

"What exactly are these projects? Are they really needed? And is it going to benefit the people of North Carolina? If it's going to be a good expenditure of taxpayer money, I will go to bat for it."

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/11/26/826629/federal-earmark-ban-still-fluid.html#ixzz16Oiditvr

How about a new baseline of $100,000* to kick in the requirement for benefit-cost analysis of government projects? This would accomplish two worthy goals: reduce spending on bogus projects (as fewer bogus projects will be proposed and those bogus projects proposed will generate negative net benefits) and increase employment opportunities for economists.

*What is the baseline now? $100 million?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now go out and buy something and stimulate the economy:

North Carolina is extending the popular Energy Star rebate program of earlier this year.

The N.C. Energy Office originally doled out $8.8 million to consumers who purchased a new Energy Star-qualified appliance. Now an additional $650,000 in unspent federal Recovery Act funds is being used to offer additional rebates. An additional $350,000 will be used to pay the rebates of the 2,480 consumers who are on the waiting list from the earlier rebate program.

via www.newsobserver.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of Thanksgiving, here's an example of price/quality signaling at the local Walgreen's.

Picture of the day: The Chevy Volt's EPA Mileage Ratings

I pick electric.

I wonder if Julia Roberts is available for the sequel?

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced Friday that it is prepared to buy homes and farms in the Mojave Desert town of Hinkley that are threatened by chemically laced groundwater flowing underneath the beleaguered farming community.

The San Francisco utility sent letters to property owners this week expressing interest in purchasing 100 homes and lots in the San Bernardino County town where higher-than-normal levels of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6, have been detected. The toxic plume has extended in the past year, and the contamination appears to be spreading farther into the aquifer about 12 miles west of Barstow.

"We are interested in purchasing their property," said Jeff Smith, the spokesman for PG&E. "This letter says we would like to speak to them."

The move comes despite recent assurances by PG&E that the chromium-infused water is not a threat to people because the chemicals do not exceed state drinking water standards.

The utility is still trying to live down accusations that it covered up sickness and death allegedly caused by chromium 6, which leaked into drinking water from the cooling towers of a PG&E compressor station between 1952 and 1966.

A 1996 claim filed on behalf of more than 600 Hinkley residents - and highlighted in the film "Erin Brockovich" - ended with a $333 million settlement.

via www.sfgate.com

I hope the programmers at SAS, LIMDEP, STATA, GAUSS and MATLAB are all watching this

I think we might need a 'geek' category, because this made me way too excited.

A few I would like to see:

1)  Run negative binomial regression of trips on owncost, subcost1 and subcost2.

2)  Run difference in difference model on housing prices in 2008 and 2009.

3) Make me a turkey and cheddar sandwich.  Hold the mustard.