Environmental Economics

Quote of the day

Don't destroy evidence that could cost shareholders billions of dollars:

The lawyers and justices for the most part resisted the temptation to make fish jokes. But Justice Kennedy got one in near the end of the argument.

“Perhaps Congress should have called this the Sarbanes-Oxley-Grouper Act,” he said.

via mobile.nytimes.com

In this case, a few undersized red grouper.

Ummmm...well...uh...I, uh...hmmm...pfft

Sen. James M. Inhofe, an the Oklahoma Republican who once compared the Environmental Protection Agency to the gestapo, is likely to lead the Environment and Public Works Committee when the GOP takes control of the Senate next year.

via www.washingtonpost.com

One of my favorite Inhofe quotes: "Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night,’ my point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

Something else is wrong with your Hyundai and Kia

Just a few millions:

The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency announced today that the Hyundai Motor Company and the Kia Motors Corporation would pay a combined $100 million penalty as part of a settlement for overstating vehicle fuel economy standards on 1.2 million vehicles, a violation of the Clean Air Act.

The penalty is the largest ever paid for violation of the Clean Air Act, government officials said.

via www.nytimes.com

Since the travel cost variable depends on the cost of fuel per mile and the cost of fule per mile depends on miles per gallon, all of the cost per mile estimates in recreation demand models suffer from measurement error. Proceed to retract your travel cost method journal papers.

Or, nevermind, the travel cost variable is so loaded with measurement error that this addition doesn't matter. 

"A Look at How the NFIP Differs from a Private Insurance Company"

Short answer: "if the NFIP was a private insurance company it would no longer be in business." Carolyn Kousky and Leonard A. Shabman: 

Flood insurance in the United States is offered through the federal National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The 2005 hurricane season sent the program massively into debt to the US Treasury. As the deficit grew, Congress focused its attention on the program’s pricing policies. One focus was on the roughly 20 percent of policyholders who pay discounted premiums because their properties were built before the land was mapped as a high flood hazard area. Attention was also focused on whether the premium revenue collected from NFIP policyholders would be sufficient to pay future claims. Rate changes became the subject of congressional reform in 2012 and again in 2014.

Throughout these discussions, private sector pricing, often used interchangeably with the notion of actuarial pricing, has been used as a benchmark for NFIP rates. In addition, congressional legislation calls on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to report on how its premiums compare with what a private insurer might charge. In a new discussion paper, “Pricing Flood Insurance: How and Why the NFIP Differs from a Private Insurance Company,” we explain why, within constraints set by law, the NFIP may currently employ actuarially sound pricing principles. At the same time, because of restrictions on its pricing and operations, the NFIP is not collecting enough premium revenue to cover payouts over the long run, which would not occur with a private insurance company and creates a fiscally unsound program. Indeed, the NFIP is unlikely to be able to recover from its current debt, which now stands at roughly $24 billion. ...

via common-resources.org

Certainer

In its "synthesis report," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the hundreds of authors involved in the study were even more certain than before that the planet is warming and humans are the cause.

via www.cnn.com

The founder of the Weather Channel disagrees:

 

See? I'm fair and balanced.

All of the leaves aren't even down