October 2006

Cellphone Gives India’s Traditional Sardine Fishermen Bargaining Power

Michael Giberson Kevin Sullivan, writing in the Washington Post, delivers a fantastic story about how the spread of cellphones among traditional fishermen in India has reshaped the industry: Rajan said that before he got his first cellphone a few years ago, he used to arrive at port with a load of fish and hope for …

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A Newspaper Peeks at Power Industry and Restructuring

Michael Giberson In what is identified as the “first article of a series,” the New York Times reports that the results of power industry restructuring have disappointed many people. A decade after competition was introduced in their industries, long-distance phone rates had fallen by half, air fares by more than a fourth and trucking rates …

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The Floyd Landis Case: Distributed Knowledge, Transparency, and the Wisdom of Crowds

Lynne Kiesling As KP readers know, I am a cyclist and commented on the innumerate media debacle surrounding the Floyd Landis drug test here and here in July. Between the histrionics of the media, the history of bad behavior on the part of at least one testing lab, and the sheer ignorance of science and …

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Making Clean Energy Pay

Michael Giberson The Washington Post headlined a story in today’s edition, “In Ontario, Making ‘Clean Energy’ Pay.” From what I gather reading the article, they have in fact discovered how to make renewable energy pay in Ontario, at least if by “clean energy” you mean “other people’s wallets.” The story kicks off with a solar …

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Does Renewable Energy Require Endless Subsidies?

Michael Giberson A visit to the website of the Renewable Energy Policy Project turned up a link to this article by REPP’s executive director, George Sterzinger, urging that federal tax credits for certain renewable energy technologies be made permanent. Sterzinger complains that it is hard for the renewable energy industry to plan for the long …

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