A reader familiar with my longstanding interest in how one defines “drought” sent along this interesting story from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Federal Government-selected experts want people to start using the word “dryness” to describe Australia’s worst drought in a century. The word “drought” makes farmers feel bad, says the Government’s hand-picked Drought Policy Review …
I don’t know about you, but my right to enjoy bottled water is up there with freedom from search and seizure for me!
I was annoyed at the McCain campaign for not answering my energy policy questions. Turns out I am not alone.
David Glenn had a fascinating piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education last week about the struggle by academic economists to be relevant in the current fiscal crisis: [N]ow that the dust is beginning to settle in Washington, many academic economists have the gnawing feeling that during moments of crisis, they don’t have much ability …
I totally made Env-Econ today! So I quote Whitehead, he links to me, then I link back to him. Will the totally bogus circular linkage chain be broken? Your move, John….
Remember when the commodity price explosion was causing food riots, and people were starving? Yesterday’s Economist food price index was 1.9 percent below a year ago. * The title is one of the few literary references at my disposal.
An AP story a couple of days ago is a reminder of why I’m so pessimistic about the possibility of effective climate change mitigation. People want energy, and they want it cheap. The story opens with a young Welsh man, whose father and grandfather worked the mines: “I couldn’t believe it when I heard there …
I swear I got a good look at it. But it’s really not supposed to be here. Is I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a terribly experienced birdwatcher. But lately I’ve spent a lot of time at it, making lists using eBird, keeping close track of my yard birds, and dragging the books and binoculars with …
I took a crack this morning at explaining, by example, three things that are currently going on in our U.S. energy economy. The first is the way gasoline consumption has remained depressed, even as prices dropped. The second is the way the drop in consumption has been disproportionately carried out by people near the bottom …
One bright spot in the global economic picture: worldwide financial collapse has led to lower food prices! From the Economist, the global food price index is down 16 percent from a month ago, and is essentially unchanged from prices a year ago.