Technologies to cut back carbon dioxide emissions from factories and vehicles that feed the global economy add costs to fuel, food and more, an option that appeals neither to industrial nations struggling with the global economic meltdown or developing nations trying to ramp up economic growth.
[...]One of the problems with energy consumption is that consumers often don't know exactly how much energy they are consuming at a given moment, or how much that consumption is costing. Typical consumers get a bill at the end of the month reporting total consumption and the total bill. But [...]
Students were occupying buildings Friday on several campuses of the University of California system in protest of a 32 percent tuition hike.
...
University officials said the $505 million to be raised by the tuition increases is needed to prevent even deeper cuts than those already made because of California's [...]
From the Columbus Dispatch:
Federal officials say the despised Asian carp may have breached an electronic barrier designed to prevent it from invading the Great Lakes and jeopardizing their $7 billion sport fishery.
Officials with the Army Corps of Engineer say Friday that DNA of the giant carp have been found [...]
As Tim previously announced, you'll be able to find me in San Antonio this weekend. Here is the link to my conference schedule. I'll also be attending this great looking session.
I'll be presenting our (Tim, Rob, Kurt and John) recreation demand models [...]
John's headed to the Southern Economic Association meetings in San Antonio this weekend. Unfortunately I can't make it. At the risk of exposing her to John's typcial meeting antics, I'm sending one of my brilliant Ph.D. students, Carolina Castilla*, in my place. She'll be presenting some work we're doing on consumers' price [...]
First, congrats to Jay! Here is a bit from the journal announcement:
Jason Shogren has left an indelible impact on the profession of agricultural and applied economics. ...Prior to his appointment at his alma mater, he held positions at Appalachian State, Yale, and Iowa State Universities. ...
... he enjoys [...]
I'm heading to the SEA meetings tomorrow and am wondering where everyone is staying. Not at the conference hotel, it seems. Here is some background:
The [SEA] hotel is overcharging for each room to pay for the conference meeting rooms. When facing a high price, such as in a year [...]
I finished SuperFreakonomics the other night and give four-fifths of it a thumbs up (chapter 5 gets a thumbs down). My guess is that if a reader picked up SuperFreak first it would give the same positive jolt to utility that Freak gave when read first. I enjoyed [...]
Long quote, brief comment (from the Wilmington Star-News):
The question is no longer whether the seas are rising, just if human-induced factors are speeding up the natural process.
But for North Carolina’s coastal officials, that answer matters little. What does is that while the oceans rise, an average of 3.5 millimeters annually as [...]
From the comments section on this post:
Posts like this are why I don't recommend this blog--to anyone. Use your "Puerile Humor" tag less sparingly.
My reply:
Oscar,
I don't recommend this blog to anyone either! And thanks for your anonymous comment! Those are the ones I pay most attention to!
Anyway, [...]
CFC reductions are often hailed as an environmental policy success story. The reason CFC reduction policies have been so successful is Congress taxed the bejesus out of CFCs.
The Clean Air Act (Title VI) established caps on most CFC's as agreed upon under the Montreal Protocol, with a complete phase [...]
OK, I guess it's TypePad's Twitter.
[...]Testing the new quick compose feature on TypePad (I don't know what this is supposed to do).
' [...]
Peter King on John Gruden's time away from coaching:
I also really like how he's taken the year for some continuing education about football. We talked about the spread offense and how much he's learned about it from reaching out to college coaches. "I've really learned a lot from [Oregon coach] [...]
In the latest obstacle to proposed U.S. climate legislation, key lawmakers on Thursday urged Senate Democrats to change distribution plans for carbon permits to offer more protection for coal-dependent utilities.
Isn't the point of all of this to make coal dependent utilities uncomfortable? Read on...
The lawmakers said the [...]
Page 278 in Zerbe and Bellas (which, actually, I think is a good book):
As construction began on these plants, the cost of power began to rise, which in turn reduced demand.
A reasonable next sentence might be: The eventual result was that the region had lower electricity prices. Yet, the [...]
The WaPo review turned me on to Ezra Klein. My favorite post:
The Chamber of Commerce recently blasted out a fundraising e-mail to its member groups asking for $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to study the health-care bills. Seems sensible enough. Knowledge is power, and all that. But then, as Michael Shear [...]
From the inbox:
Okay John,
I plead total ignorance (but not apathy), further backed up by a Google search resulting in nothing of value (well substance).
I enjoy Environmental Economics, one of the enlightening e mails that I get.
I also like your taste in music.
So the question of the day is ‘what does [...]
Top 10 Reasons to be hating on John List**:
As already mentioned earlier today: he dissed lab experiments. His vita: too many papers published in the top journals. His fawning rags-to-riches bio in SuperFreakonomics (more details below). If you love him so much why don't you marry him? His country club*** sport: [...]I was beginning to wonder if I was alone is questioning the drunk walking assertion in SuperFreakonomics. But the WaPo review nails it:
... the authors theorize that it is more dangerous for a tipsy person to walk any given distance than it is for that person to drive. [...]U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders on Sunday supported delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later, but European negotiators said the move did not imply weaker action...
French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said it was clear the main obstacle was the United States' [...]
So I have a proposal--I'll call it a fuel efficiency payment. Here's how it works: All cars [...]
This week I was "incentivized" (gosh, how I hate that word) to estimate a recreation demand model for South Atlantic (NC - FL) marine recreational fishing using the MRFSS and the standard NMFS nested logit demand model. Using almost 4000 angler trips there are six mode/species alternatives. In [...]
Lord Smith of Finsbury believes that implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would [...]
Is the widening of US HWY 421 in Boone efficient (i.e., a potential Pareto improvement)? Use these resources to answer the question below:
Estimated Cost: Construction $16.2 million Length: 1.1 miles About 45,000 vehicles use the road there daily Watauga County Quickfacts Value of time (use Table 1: PDF): [...]Good think I know that Prof. Miller is kidding around:
Prof. Whitehead notes a post that says that the claim that meat production generates 51% of greenhouse gas emissions is based on "addled" conclusions.
By the way, why does nobody mention beer (or any adult beverage, for that matter) along with greenhouse gasses? There's a [...]
Having never had one of my own papers rejected*, I'm not sure I understand the premise behind this new journal, but Env-Econ reader Alan Dove thinks some of my "collegaues could benefit from this."
Rejecta Mathematica is an open access, online journal that publishes only papers that have been rejected from [...]
From the Terrapass blog:
Conventional wisdom has it that meat production is responsible for about 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions — a shocking enough figure as it is. But lately a much higher number has been circulating, with some claiming that meat is responsible for an astonishing 51% of worldwide emissions.
Some skepticism [...]
Chapter 2 of SuperFreakonomics answers the question of why suicide bombers should buy life insurance. As part of this discussion the authors discuss the issue of ranking physicians. One way is to assess the life expectancy of their patients -- the better the doctor the longer their patients live. [...]
The CBO just released cost estimate for the Devil's Staircase Wilderness Act (PDF) provides an opportunity for an economics exam question:
H.R. 2888 would designate about 29,650 acres of federal land in Oregon as the Devil’s Staircase Wilderness. The bill also would designate about 15 miles of creeks in [...]
The scene: An early autumnal morning in a household in suburban Columbus. I approach the breakfast table as my family readies themselves for school.
Me--pointing at an 8-point buck walking through our suburban yard, passing within 10 feet of the window*: "Hey, look!"
My wife,two of our three kids--the youngest is still knocked out [...]
As if my wicked slice doesn't cause me enough stress, now I have this to worry about when I golf (from CNN):
Research teams at the Danish Golf Union have discovered it takes between 100 to 1,000 years for a golf ball to decompose naturally. A startling fact when it is also [...]
Last night, my kids saw the trailer for the apocalyptic movie 2012, a foretelling of the end of time based on interpretation of the Mayan calendar. They freaked out a bit--especially after I told them it is true* and I know that because the predictions are based on the Haab calendar. I even had [...]
From the economics angle the biggest problem with the SuperFreakonomics climate change chapter is the lack of economics. That sounds odd, doesn't it?. As I've said before I have no idea if the 18 mile volcano tubes are ridiculous or not, but it should be considered a complement to reducing [...]
I just finished presenting Tim's (and Rob's and Kurt's) paper in our Department Seminar Series:
Appalachian State UniversityAll seminars are in Raley 3010 at 2:00 P.M. unless otherwise indicated.
...
November 6, John Whitehead, "Angler Heterogeneity and the Species-Specific Demand for Marine Recreational Fishing"
They were wowed [...]
The title comes from a message from David Zetland (at aguanomics) who, besides asking questions with obvious answers, thinks posts about cow farts cheapen his blog. To that I say, nothing can cheapen our blog--er, or something like [...]
From the inbox:
Thank you for your interest in the [EPA Science Advisory Board] Environmental Economics Advisory Committee. This is to let you know that you were not selected. We were privileged to have many qualified candidates such as yourself from which to fill just 4 openings on this committee.
Well at [...]
The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday approved a Democratic climate change bill that would require industry to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
With Republicans boycotting the committee's work saying more analysis of the legislation [...]
From an Ask the Expert column I wrote for onCampus: The Ohio State University faculty staff information hub (aka on-line newsletter):
What are the basics of the recent energy policy proposals in Congress?
There are two energy bills moving through Congress right now: The American Clean Energy and Security Act in the [...]
In the Review of Mechanism Design (page 84):
A largely independent development of stated preference methods, called contingent valuation (CV) and focused on eliciting preferences for public goods, occurred in resource economics (Davis 1963; Randall et al. 1974). The method has been promoted and used somewhat uncritically as a tool [...]
From the inbox comes evidence that "elite economic experts" (smacks of elitism) consider global warming a problem and think incentives might matter:
Most expert economists agree: reducing our greenhouse gas emissions can help avoid a major economic malfunction. Those are the findings of a survey conducted by the Institute for Policy [...]
Scientists spent eight years tracking the movements of 179 great white sharks and discovered that these predators have very predictable migration patterns between Hawaii and the North American coast. Dots below show approximate locations where 68 sharks tagged with satellite sensors were recorded at various [...]
Sen was born on this day in 1933. I was born on this day in 1969.
Sen has a Nobel Prize.
I don't.
[...]I'm typing up my notes for the contingent valuation method (CVM) lecture in the benefit-cost analysis course and it has made me ready to deal with something that's been bugging me for awhile*. I'm thinking it is time to drop the "valuation" part of contingent valuation and replace [...]
Here's the beginning and end of a column I submitted at 11:30 today for an Ask the Expert segment in our campus newsletter:
The American Clean Energy and Security Act in the House of Representatives (nicknamed ACES and cosponsored by Waxman-Markey) and the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act in the [...]
We're "reputable" economists (The simple math of green jobs):
From time to time we have reported on green job projections. Many reputable economists question these studies, among them Tim Haab and John Whitehead at The Environmental Economics Blog ...
From now on the acronym for "The Environmental Economics Blog" is TEEB (pronounced TEEB, [...]
I admit that I’m torn in my opinion about SuperFreakonomics. I was predisposed to fully embrace it. The first book, Freakonomics, did great things for the economics profession. It made economics interesting and readable. It broadened the scope [...]
From the inbox:
Greetings from Amazon.com. You saved $1.69 with Amazon.com's Pre-order Price Guarantee! The price of the item(s) decreased after you ordered them, and we gave you the lowest price.
The following title(s) decreased in price:
SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
[...]
I continue to cringe at the SuperFreakonomics reviews, but I can't stop reading and reposting them. Is that admission a cry for help?
David Roberts at Grist:
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner are the latest to do it, in their new book Superfreakonomics. Their chapter on [...]
An open letter to Steve Levitt at the RealClimate blog:
... if it has come to pass that we can’t expect the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor (and Clark Medalist to boot) at a top-rated department of a respected university to think clearly and honestly with numbers, we are indeed in a [...]The largest stimulus program in the nation's history has created or saved at least 650,000 jobs, according to a report released by the Obama administration on Friday.
Based on approximately $150 billion in spending from the $787 billion recovery package, the tally is the first broad, concrete look at [...]
From the inbox:
Today the Washington Post had an article on the tension at Virgina Tech between those who want to tailgate for Thursday night games and, um, academics. My favorite quote: ' having a prominent football team "does great things for the university, much more so than somebody discovering [...]
If you disagree with the thrust of the SuperFreakonomics climate change chapter, are you a global warming fanatic? Here is the Freakonomics blog post in my Google Reader:
[Steve Levitt] wondered if he was in for a Jim Cramer-type beatdown. But it turns out that Jon Stewart doesn't appreciate the global-warming [...]From the RESECON listserv:
RESECON readers are invited to a Union of Concerned Scientists' event, "Taking Action on Climate Change: An Economists' Weekend," in Chicago, IL. The event will start with dinner on Friday, November 13, and continue until 4PM on Sunday, November 15, 2009. The weekend is open to PhD [...]
Climate change presents a global crisis, but "can also provide an economic opportunity of vast proportions," Dan Reicher, director of climate change initiatives at Google told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Besides creating new jobs in solar, wind and geothermal power, he said national regulation of [...]
From the inbox:
Output of goods and services grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate, faster than economists expected, according to preliminary figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Even so, it will be months before job-seekers begin to feel the benefits.
Parts of the stimulus arrived around the time that growth [...]
Got in at midnight and will be in a hotel conference room (undisclosed location) from 9 to 4 for an SSC meeting:
The purpose of this joint meeting of the SSC and the SSC Selection Committee is to hold an open discussion on SSC responsibilities, Council needs and expectations, and [...]
I'm engrossed by SuperFreakonomics (up to page 21). It is a page turner* but I can't help wonder if it is all quite right. For example, at this point in the book, the drunk walking result is an assertion based on a dubious assumption:
If we assume that [...]Arena's economic impacts estimated:
Louisville's downtown arena has helped generate more than $100million in nearby investment and construction, according to an economic impact analysis released Monday.
The report, issued during the Louisville Arena Authority's monthly meeting, acknowledges that it's hard to determine the factors behind those projects but said next year's [...]From the inbox:
One of the most ambitious environmental restoration efforts ever proposed for the Great Lakes appears imminent following the emergence from a House-Senate conference committee of legislation providing $475 million for a comprehensive Great Lakes restoration and protection initiative.
"We call on the House and Senate to approve, and the [...]
The Energy Collective has another webinar coming up on 10/28, 1pm EST on Rethinking the Electric Grid: Modernizing the Nation's Transmission System. Marc Gunther will be moderating. This will be is the second in the series they are putting on this fall:
With $4 billion of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act designated [...]
I received SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, etc in the mail yesterday and plan to read the climate change chapter tonight while watching The Office reruns on TBS. But, I'm wondering, should I wait for the second edition?
Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, said he does not believe there is a [...]
In response to my post this morning, where I wrote:
Follow the bouncing ball of unintended economic consequences. Banks forward credit to people who can't afford it at interest rates that are really high. Predictably, default rates on credit cards rise. Perhaps more predictably, to protect the consumer from evil bankers, the Government passes [...]
Missing the point on energy and jobs:
Our employment goal for energy should not be to have as many people working in the energy sector as we can, but to have the most efficient and cost-effective energy sector possible, in order to promote job creation and retention in the rest of the economy, [...]
Just weeks before an international conference on climate change, the United Nations signaled it was scaling back expectations of reaching agreement on a new treaty to slow global warming.
[...]From the government:
The House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife, led by Del. Madeleine Z. Bordallo (D-GU), will hold an oversight hearing on implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 2006, which President Bush signed into law on January 12, 2007.
Subject: House Subcommittee on [...]
Follow the bouncing ball of unintended economic consequences. Banks forward credit to people who can't afford it at interest rates that are really high. Predictably, default rates on credit cards rise. Perhaps more predictably, to protect the consumer from evil bankers, the Government passes regulations on the interest rates that can be charged. Sounds [...]
From The Onion (Senate passes blame):
In a rare display of bipartisanship, senators on both sides of the aisle set aside their differences Tuesday and passed off responsibility for the nation's problems by an overwhelming 91-8 margin. "As senators, it's our duty to get any sort of blame out of Congress and onto [...]
Have you taken the Freakonomics global warming quiz? It involves a series of True/False questions that are designed to get the reader to agree with the SuperFreakonomics climate chapter. "Uncertain" is not a possible answer even when we get to the technological questions. Such as:
There exists an engineering design [...]
From the Sunday NYTimes comes the details (Senate Global Warming ...):
The Senate bill aimed at reducing global warming pollution will initially grant billions of dollars of free emissions permits to utilities and industry but will require the bulk of the money be returned to consumers and taxpayers, according [...]
Bold headline this morning: Mobile Use is Linked to Brain Tumours. The lead:
LONG-term mobile phone users could face a higher risk of developing cancer in later life, according to a decade-long study.
The problem? Apparently the results were released to the media before (or simultaneously with) submission for peer-review:
Preliminary results [...]
People with relatively extreme opinions may be more willing to publicly share their views than those with more moderate views, according to a new study.
The key is that the extremists have to believe that more people share their views than actually do, the research found.
...
“When people with [...]
From Environmental Capital at the WSJ:
The law of unintended consequences strikes yet again.
Global plans to tackle climate change, from the Kyoto Protocol to the recently-passed Waxman-Markey bill, have a fatal flaw: They essentially encourage large-scale deforestation, which pretty much undermines the whole idea of curbing greenhouse-gas emissions in the first place.
That’s [...]
From the NYTimes (Polar Bear Habitat Proposed for Alaska):
The Interior Department on Thursday proposed designating more than 200,000 square miles of land, sea and ice along the northern coast of Alaska as critical habitat for the shrinking polar bear population.
The area, the largest single designation of protected habitat for [...]We have a seminar speaker today so here is my brutal schedule:
12:00-1:00, 1:15-ish: lunch with speaker 2:00-3, 3:30-ish: Garth Heutel (UNCG) "Learning, Externalities, and Hybrid Vehicle Adoption" 3:30-?: Social hour I was adopted when I was 6 weeks old so I'm sure I'll have lots of questions during the seminar. [...]...either that or he thinks they learn in their sleep. From the Columbus Dispatch:
Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee still wants all sophomores to live on campus as early as 2012.
In May 2008, Gee announced his desires to have second-year students live in residence halls, [...]
…you think the best evidence of global warming is not that every year the snows melt earlier or that every year the flowers bloom earlier but that every year the Christmas shopping season starts earlier.
More, and better*, of these are at Standupeconomist.com, which we've just added to the green economics blogroll.
*Like [...]
Rob Stavins on cap-and-trade in the U.S. Senate:
There may be sound reasons for concern about the developing Senate bill, but the so-called “free allocation” should not be one of them. Indeed, this debate is unfortunately repeating the confusion which was prevalent in the press and the blogosphere about the allowance allocation in [...]
From the Scholars Bookshop (ASU campus bookstore) Newsletter:
Discounted New ArrivalsSuperfreakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner ($29.99 list price, our price = $23.99) -- The "freakquel" to the 2006 Appalachian Summer Reading Program selection and [...]
Wow, that site is a cesspool.
-- Will
My reply:
yep, makes we want to retract our JOE ad.
Does anonymity reveal true character or does it encourage your worst behavior?
[...]In a call to arms for economists, David Zetland (from aguanomics) writes:
As an economist, I was appalled to read the comments of recent PhDs on Ostrom's award:
http://aguanomics.com/2009/10/economics-fail.html
As I am sure you know, she has made critical contributions to understanding how common pool resources can be managed in the absence [...]
First, the context:
[North Carolina] Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger delivered a big ol' mess of opinion surveys to the governor's office Tuesday.
The answers included on the "Conservative Voter Survey" sent to prospective Republican voters are likely the least surprising thing in state politics. ...
"Do you oppose Bev Perdue and the Democrats' plan to [...]
Economics PhD candidates (likely most of these are at the best schools) are saying silly things about the Ostrom/Williamson (mostly Ostrom) Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Here are my favorites from Economics Job Market Rumors (don't follow the link if you are offended by potty mouth; apparently, PhD [...]
The Energy Collective has another webinar coming up on 10/28, 1pm EST on Rethinking the Electric Grid: Modernizing the Nation's Transmission System. Marc Gunther will be moderating. This will be is the second in the series they are putting on this fall:
With $4 billion of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act designated [...]
The negative reviews of the SuperFreakonomics climate chapter keep coming in. From Boing Boing:
The Freakonomics guys have apparently either really dropped the ball when it comes to understanding science, or they're willfully ignoring it. Either way, I'm pretty disappointed.
The sequel's contrarian take on climate change--and the bad science it's steeped in--have been [...]
The opening paragraph of Carbone, Helm and Rutherford (JEEM 58:266-280, 2009) who argue with theory and simulations that it might be possible to address the global public good of mitigating climate change with incentive-based policy:
The Kyoto Protocol has achieved little in terms of global emission reductions. Current negotiations [...]
Mr. LEVITT:
... But I think every evidence we have, it's incredibly difficult to change human behavior, especially on a global basis. ...
He's referring here to free-riding of [...]
When I get my copy of SuperFreakonomics I'm going to keep my eyes open because I've heard a rumor, reinforced below, that it says that policies that raise the price of carbon-intensive stuff won't work in cutting carbon consumption and production. In other words, incentives don't matter. This isn't the [...]
... catch the boys on 20/20 Friday night (from the press tour):
October 23:
20/20: SuperFreakonomics One-Hour Special, ABC // 10 p.m. EST
One-hour special? I think I'll try to watch this one.
Has anyone seen the TV appearances this week? Is the climate controversy mentioned?
[...]
