The Commons Blog

• Weak Property Rights = Pollution?

  I'm not usually much on "Top Ten" lists, but this one certainly reiterated for me that the worst pollution is correlated with weak property rights. That industrialized Western nations with strong property rights can't collectively crack the top 30 suggests... [...]
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  Posted: September 13, 2007, 12:21pm EDT
  by tfitzgerald

• An Inconvenient Analogy

  On April 26-27, the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace organized a seminar on global warming, to better undertsnad the different points of view involved in the debate over climate policies. For nearly the first time in my life, I... [...]
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  Posted: April 29, 2007, 11:01am EDT
  by cstagnaro

• Accentuating the Negatives: The IPCC Working Group II Summary for Policymakers (SPM)

  (Courtesy of Indur Goklany) Although the SPM has some useful and apt things to say about the need for adaptation, it is flawed by the fact that it: -- Overstates negative impacts and understates positive impacts of climate change --... [...]
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  Posted: April 09, 2007, 12:22am EDT
  by imgrant

• Ten Billion Served (and Hundreds of Millions Fleeced)

  The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) just announced that the U.S. transit industry carried more than 10 billion transit trips in 2006, the first time the industry has exceeded 10 billion trips since 1957. Naturally, APTA -- the transit industry's... [...]
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  Posted: March 17, 2007, 10:27pm EDT
  by rot

• How Property Rights are Helping Green the Sahel in Niger

  courtesy Indur Goklany In an article in today's New York Times titled, "In Niger, Trees and Crops Turn Back the Desert," Lydia Pollgren notes how property rights to trees growing on farmers' land have contributed to both economic growth, agricultural... [...]
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  Posted: February 11, 2007, 9:11pm EST
  by imgrant

• Dissent, Denial and the Holocaust

  (courtesy Indur Goklany) In a recent column Ellen Goodman says, "I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust... [...]
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  Posted: February 10, 2007, 9:32pm EST
  by imgrant

• Enron's Green-Fingered Successors

  I won't let the week end without a fisking of the Washington Post's silly global warming op-ed Monday by in-house writer Sebastian Mallaby. Mallaby says: "While the White House was sorting out its message, the rest of Washington was busy.... [...]
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  Posted: January 28, 2007, 2:45am EST
  by aridenour

• Portland as a Model of Transportation Planning

  Recently, the BBC featured my home town of Portland as an example of how good transportation planning can create a city "where the car is not king." The reporter (a vice chair of Britain's Conservative Party) was conned by Portland's... [...]
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  Posted: December 13, 2006, 12:33am EST
  by rot

• New Journal - EJSD

  What is "sustainable development" – and how can it be achieved? The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development is a new peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary online journal which will seek to answer these and other questions.... [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2006, 8:20am EST
  by kendra

• Hot Times at the High Court

  Tomorrow the Supreme Court here's oral arguments in Massachusetts v. EPA, a case in which several states and environmentalist groups are seeking to force the federal regulation of greenhouse gases. I've blogged several posts on the case and related commentary... [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2006, 5:54pm EST
  by jhadler

• And now for. . . Ecosexuals??

  We've had homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, and metrosexuals, but are you ready for. . . ecosexuals? The latest edition of San Francisco magazine has a feature article, "In Search of a Nice Gaia," in which ecosexuality is the theme. It includes... [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2006, 11:31am EST
  by shayward

• Guest Post by Paul Driessen

  Countless people can thank previous generations of researchers and test groups for vaccines, antibiotics and medical treatments that have saved many of us and our children from polio, infections and once-fatal diseases. Today's researchers are developing new generations of miracle... [...]
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  Posted: October 27, 2006, 12:58pm EDT
  by ismurray

• Enviros ignore EPA in favor of own story

  EPA's new report "America's Children and the Environment" notes that air pollution declined, but asthma prevalence continues to rise. One possible conclusion from this is that air pollution is not actually a cause of asthma. In fact, that's the most... [...]
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  Posted: October 25, 2006, 1:38pm EDT
  by jschwartz2

• Gore Attacked. . . from the Left

  I have not seen this blog before, but it nails the case for Gore's hypocrisy: "It was Mr. Global Warming himself who first tried to kill off the Kyoto Protocol."... [...]
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  Posted: October 24, 2006, 4:39pm EDT
  by shayward

• Same as the Old Boss?

  Financial columnist Jim Jubak notes that prospective Democratic replacements for key Republican committee chairmen might not make environmentalists' hearts go aflutter: "But Barton's likely replacement would be John Dingell, D-Mich., a fierce advocate for the U.S. automobile industry. In other... [...]
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  Posted: October 24, 2006, 7:55am EDT
  by shayward