Michael Lewis’s Moneyball was more than a book about how the small-market Oakland Athletics employed unconventional, statistics-based methods to beat bigger-money teams in the game of baseball. The genius of the book — and I’m probably biased here as a lifelong Oakland A’s fan — was its ability to expose … More >
Energy & Environment
Keith Poole has spent years devising measures of political ideology. The late Phil Frickey and I used his scholarship in our work on public choice theory. He has now produced similar information about Presidents, incorporated in the following chart:
It would be useful to have a similar measure for environmental policy. … More >
The Economist commissioned a study of particulate pollution in China, using estimates based on satellite data. The results are predictably grim:
World Health Organisation guidelines suggest that PM2.5 levels above ten micrograms per cubic metre are unsafe. The boffins have found (as the map shows) that almost every Chinese province has … More >
I’ve posted previously about the rebound effect. Improving energy efficiency frees up money, which can be used to purchase more of the same product or different products that use energy. This “rebound” cuts away at the energy savings and correspondingly at the carbon reduction achieved through energy efficiency. Everyone seems … More >
Bashing EPA is apparently a good political tactic, at least if you’re in a red state, but it’s also a smokescreen — what is presented as an attack on the agency is actually an attack on the mission assigned by Congress. In terms of carrying out the mission, EPA is … More >
The Solyndra uproar and the recent International Trade Commission decision to investigate Chinese solar panel manufacturers threatens to distract us from what we need most: a proactive, long-term clean and sustainable energy strategy.
If you look beyond the partisan politics that has recently engulfed the solar industry, two irrefutable facts stand … More >
The outcome in Durban seems to be better than expected, although admittedly that’s partly because expectations were low. From the official press release:
In Durban, governments decided to adopt a universal legal agreement on climate change as soon as possible, but not later than 2015. Work will begin on this immediately … More >
While this may seem like a cheesy title it represents a newly acquired appreciation for the term ‘sustainable development’. Years ago, my Dean asked me to join the Center for Sustainable Resource Development and as a young faculty member I did not fully comprehend what it meant but I knew … More >
Would you be willing to pay 3 ½ cents a day to reduce the pollution from the electric power you use by 40%?
In a recent article, the San Francisco Chronicle talked about the high price of adding renewable energy to the grid. Citing a study prepared by the California Public … More >
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