In which I whine about the state of the current presidential campaign energy policy debate.
Hubbert Right Again
Peak IP addresses. (Hubbert predicted this would happen. You see those techno-optimistists with their wild claims that IPV6 will fix this. I think we’re condemned to a dystopian future.)
Denver Saves Water, Raises Rates
Not doubt the economists* in the audience can explain this in terms of pricing and efficiency:
Colorado’s largest water utility will raise rates 7.5 percent next year as it seeks to offset rising operating costs and soft water sales among its drought-conscious customers.
* I’m not being sarcastic here. I genuinely believe economists have some good tools for both empirical descriptions of what’s going on and normative suggestions for what one might do to better handle this situation. My guess is that, by properly pricing the water in the first place (at a much higher price), you’d both conserve water and not have your utility going broke. Shortages are a common result of artificially underpriced resources, as happened with US natural gas in the 1970s.
Global Food Prices
Global food prices have dropped out of the headlines, lacking the drama of early July, which seems an eternity ago. Today’s Economist food price index sits at 232.2, up just 17 percent from a year ago. Positively tame in comparison.
Glantz Lands at UC
Mickey Glantz, a scholar whose work on societal-climate interactions has informed much of my thinking on these issues, has landed at the University of Colorado after his unfortunate departure from NCAR. Details on Prometheus.
Affixing Blame
WQ:
Massive amounts of money flowed into the United States because the Bush administration produced absurd deficits through an utter lack of discipline and ill-advised tax cuts in a time of war. Then we asked foreign investors and governments to buy our debt to finance our lack of discipline. Thomas Friedman has made a convincing case more than once that the Bush White House has never once asked the country to sacrifice anything to prosecute his war.
Go read the whole thing.
Defining Drought
If it happens every year, is it a drought?
Severe drought and prolonged water shortages have hit the hamlet and the surrounding area with such a regularity that the villagers, like Sarikuma, have almost lost hope of finding an effective solution to the problem.
“The dry season always brings a drought, which in turn leads to a water shortage. It is a regular cycle for us,” said the head of Munti Gunung hamlet, Ketut Karya.
It’s worth remembering Kelly Redmond’s definition of drought, which encompasses both climatological variability and the way human systems respond. From the August 2002 BAMS: “insufficient water to meet needs.” Facing a drought situation in an entirely predictable annual drought situation is clearly a human failure, not a climatological one, but whatever you call it, these people don’t have enough water.
Gasoline Shortages
EIA reported today that gasoline supplies remain thin despite that vague notion we all had that the hurricanes are so very last week:
[G]asoline inventories have declined to record low levels. At 179 million barrels, total motor gasoline inventories stand at the lowest level since 1967, based on monthly EIA data. Continuing reports of spot shortages of gasoline at some retail outlets where supplies have been most disrupted can be expected over the next several weeks.
Albuquerque Blogosphere Just Got Smarter
You’ll see a new link in the blogroll over on the right to Winthrop Quigley’s blog. Win’s a colleague at the Journal, a business writer who is very much part of my critical brain trust. His desk is the one I wander to first when I have a question about economics, but his range of interests goes far beyond economics. Not sure which category to put him in, but I’m happy he’s writing.
An Order of Magnitude for the Poor Folk
I don’t really understand what the $700 billion being discussed as a bailout for the mortgage/credit mess means, but here’s a nice benchmark for purpose of comparison:
At the start of Monday’s meeting, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world’s rich nations to spend $72 billion a year to help Africa achieve U.N. goals to fight poverty, improve health and ensure universal primary education.