Adam Stein’s Posts

• Laws of physics were made to be broken

  Competition dreams up new ways to harass suburbanites 1

  Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago

  Dwell magazine and Inhabitat have teamed up to sponsor a “Reburbia” competition in which designers re-envision suburbia in ways that make environmentalists seem as scary and dingbatty as possible.

• Let's get non-physical

  Digital downloads are greener than CDs 1

  Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago

  Several studies have looked at the climate impact of internet infrastructure and information technology, and other studies have attempted to compare the relative efficiency of internet retailing vs. traditional bricks-and-mortar stores. A new study takes a different spin on the subject.

• Math is hard

  What does it mean for a car to get 230 miles per gallon? 2

  Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago

  GM has created a bit of buzz around its claim that the Chevy Volt gets 230 miles to the gallon in city driving. From the internet a great chorus has replied: “This number doesn’t make any sense!” And it doesn’t.

• Free money proves popular

  Cash for Clunkers is a hit. Does it work? 3

  Posted 3 months ago

  The price tag of the cash-for-clunkers program has given politicians something to argue about, but does it work?

• $4 gas might be a lot more expensive than we realized

  Oil prices and the recession 0

  Posted 6 months, 1 week ago

  Economist James Hamilton crunched some numbers and found that the current recession can largely be explained by sub-prime mortgages financial derivatives imploding credit markets insolvent banks winged monkeys the surge in oil prices in 2007 and 2008. It’s a result so unexpected that even Hamilton claims not to believe it entirely, but perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised. Previous oil shocks in 1973, 1979, and 2000 were all followed by recessions.

  The Wall Street Journal weaves the finding into a sort of grand unified theory of the financial… Read More

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Adam Stein’s Recent Comments

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  FA

  I saw Flaccid Apparatchik live at Red Rock. They were awesome.

  www.terrapass.com/blog

  On The Stephen Johnson story posted 11 months ago 2 Responses

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  Good point

  I was wondering how to get trains in there. I updated the post.

  www.terrapass.com/blog

  On Low-carbon roadmap comes into focus -- with some notable gaps posted 11 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

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  Wouldn't worry about transport

  Also, mail order means that your bird traveled, and that increases Ye Olde Carbon Footprinte.

  It's not clear to what extent this is true. No matter what bird you buy, it has to get from the farm to your plate. Either it's driven to the supermarket, or you yourself drive to the farm to pick it up, or UPS takes it to your house. The relative impact of these routes is extremely difficult to gauge, and probably only makes up a small proportion of the life cycle carbon footprint of the bird.

  So I wouldn't count this as a factor -- unless you're having it airshipped, which is almost certainly a bad thing.

  Personally, I'd recommend going with heritage or pastured, with price and taste being the swing factors. Organic is a decent fallback of the other two aren't options.

  www.terrapass.com/blog

  On Smaller breasts are better, and other advice for holiday-bird quandaries posted 1 year ago 28 Responses

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  I know

  Making the qualitative observation that rising oil costs have changed consumer behavior for automobiles does not imply that CO2 prices would do the same.

  I'm not really making that argument at all. I understand that even a hefty carbon price has a fairly small relative impact for transportation. (I think the tendency to use short-run demand elasticities for gasoline as an indication that people don't respond to price changes paints a somewhat inaccurate picture, but let's assume that people will want to drive a lot no matter how expensive gas gets.)

  But I don't think I'm the one mixing and matching. It doesn't make sense to say that a) carbon prices don't matter and b) hybrids will drive conventional cars out of existence in less than ten years if oil prices rise. (a) is a statement about people's demand for driving. (b) is a statement about what people will choose to drive. People tend to conflate these two things, but they are very different, and it does seem that the price of carbon matters.

  Likewise, efficiency mandates aren't what has driven the rapid adoption of hybrid electrics to date. CAFE requirements are far, far below the performance of the most efficient cars on the market. And recently gains in fleet average efficiency in the U.S. have actually outpaced the CAFE requirements.

  So, again, this notion that pricing is hopeless and efficiency mandates are the only thing that make a difference in people's consumption choices doesn't map very cleanly to reality.

  In the end, Romm and I and everyone think that both carbon pricing and efficiency standards are important elements of holistic greenhouse gas abatement strategy. But this notion that carbon prices have to reach a certain level to work is, I think, somewhat misdirected -- and you yourself have had a bunch of smart stuff to say about how a low carbon price is a sign of a successful policy.

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  On Sometimes the issue with a particular technology is the technology itself posted 1 year ago 5 Responses

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  And an update

  I linked above to that David Cay Johnston piece that questions the severity of the crisis. Felix Salmon and Ryan Avent both demolish it. So, yes, it does appear that "something" should be done about the financial crisis.

  And I notice that Obama has, for the moment, surged in polls.

  www.terrapass.com/blog

  On The financial sector and the 'real economy' aren't that far removed posted 1 year, 1 month ago 21 Responses