Michael Giberson I’m writing in praise of a New York Times article on natural gas fracking. Yes, really! Even more surprising, I’m writing in praise of a New York Times on fracking written by Ian Urbina. Yes, really! What is this marvel, you ask? I answer, “Rush to Drill for Natural Gas Creates Conflicts With Mortgages.” What is so …
Michael Giberson A few weeks back Lynne drew attention to an interesting property dispute between neighboring farmers in Minnesota, currently the subject of legal action (see news summary here, related court decision here). In brief, the issue is pesticide drift from conventionally farmed crops onto a neighboring organic farm, and whether the organic farm can …
Lynne Kiesling Thanks to Tim Haab for pointing us to this excellent observation from Bjorn Lomborg about innovation, regulation, and environmental quality: Real reductions in carbon emissions will occur only when better technology makes it worthwhile for individuals and businesses to change their behavior. CFLs and other advances can take us part of the way, …
Lynne Kiesling Here’s another great video from Learn Liberty: Sean Mulholland introducing the “tragedy of the commons”, which, as he accurately notes, is more accurately called the problem of open access. If you teach a class where you talk about this problem, or want to learn more about this fundamental ill-defined property rights foundation of …
Lynne Kiesling A ruling last week from Minnesota’s Court of Appeals provides an interesting case study in using common law and legal liability (a la Coase) in an environmental case. As summarized in the St. Cloud Times, the issue at hand is pesticide drift — when pesticide spray on one field is carried over to …
Lynne Kiesling If you have not caught Virginia Postrel in her new columnist gig at Bloomberg View, here’s a good chance, for Virginia’s column today is about U.S. federal light bulb regulation; both Mike and I have written about light bulb technology and the EISA 2007 “performance standard” that is leading to the disappearance of …
Michael Giberson Kenneth Green hosted a panel discussion on the environmental consequences of hydraulic fracturing at the American Enterprise Institute. Panelists were: Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine, Mark Brownstein from the Environmental Defense Fund, Timothy Considine from the University of Wyoming, and Amy Mall of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The video above is just a short sound bite by Ron Bailey, …
Lynne Kiesling I’ll be interested to see how the political, economic, and environmental consequences of this weekend’s new carbon approach in the UK unfolds; according to the Guardian (and the too-much BBC that I listen to): Cabinet ministers have agreed a far-reaching, legally binding “green deal” that will commit the UK to two decades of …
Lynne Kiesling When I think about climate, greenhouse gases, carbon policy etc., I always worry about the certainty that people (typically politicians) want to attach to models (actually, that statement holds for macroeconomic models too, for the same reasons). The global climate is an incredibly complex system, comprising many individual agents and local systems that …
Lynne Kiesling Two good articles on misguided government intervention and energy policy at Reason recommend themselves. Ron Bailey’s written a really excellent, clear, analysis of improved, safer reactor technology, and argues that the best response to the Fukushima accident is not a ban, but rather is innovation: One hopeful possibility is that the Japanese crisis …
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