Come on and get your carb...on by Adam Stein
All things carbon-related.
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Laws of physics were made to be broken
Competition dreams up new ways to harass suburbanites 1
Posted 3 months 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. Read More -
Let's get non-physical
Digital downloads are greener than CDs 1
Posted 3 months 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. Read More -
Math is hard
What does it mean for a car to get 230 miles per gallon? 2
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Free money proves popular
Cash for Clunkers is a hit. Does it work? 3
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago The price tag of the cash-for-clunkers program has given politicians something to argue about, but does it work? Read More -
$4 gas might be a lot more expensive than we realized
Oil prices and the recession 0
Posted 7 months 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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I backed your market-based policy, and all I got was this lousy filibuster
Did environmentalists get played on cap and trade? 0
Posted 7 months ago Although it’s not his regular beat, Kevin Drum blogs sensibly about carbon policy from time to time. Recently, though, in an otherwise agreeable post about the fecklessness of opponents of climate change legislation, Drum offers up a narrative that is both fairly commonplace and also riddled with misconceptions:It also goes to show how fleeting conservative support for “market-oriented solutions” like cap-and trade is. A lot of the liberal enthusiasm for cap-and-trade over the past decade has been based on the idea that it might be more acceptable to conservatives than a straight tax, but obviously that hasn’t turned… Read More
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Stop the auction permits before they kill again
Waxman bill threatens children and elderly, says very concerned power industry 0
Posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago Reactions to the Waxman energy legislation are going to be pouring in over the coming days and weeks. On an early read, environmentalists are enthusiastic. But who is looking out for society's most vulnerable? Power companies, of course! Read More -
Tax a mile in another man's shoes
Oregon’s successful mileage tax experiment worked smoothly—and helped curb congestion 3
Posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago A system of per-mile road usage fees can replace our dysfunctional gasoline tax as a way of funding transportation infrastructure. Read More -
Would you pay $2,000 per ton for your carbon footprint?
Cap-and-rebate is more robust in the face of carbon high prices 0
Posted 8 months ago The other day, I used the fanciful example of $50,000-utility bills to illustrate how cap-and-rebate schemes can inspire energy efficiency and conservation. The numbers were deliberately exaggerated, but they highlight one of the features of cap-and-rebate that I like: the robustness of the system in the face of higher carbon prices. Read More -
Gold that's put to use begets more gold
How cap-and-rebate brings about carbon reductions 0
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago Let's say I'm your utility, and I raise your energy prices so that, at present rate of consumption, your bill will rise to $50,000 per year. Pretend that energy here means everything: heating oil, electricity, natural gas, everything encompassed in a carbon cap. Then I hand you an annual rebate check for $50,000. You can do two things. Read More
