Elephant Diaries: Not Worth the Paper It’s Printed On
McClatchy says its 49.5 percent share of the Seattle Times is worth $0.
Archive of entries posted on March 2009
Let ’em build in LA
Economist Edward Glaeser (based on work he’s done with Matthew Kahn) argues in the LA Times for the environmental benefits of relaxing anti-growth measures in Southern California’s temperate climes: Much of America struggles with cold winters and hot summers. Making such difficult climates comfortable for humans requires a lot of energy. By contrast, much of …
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
The most important equation in climate change.
On Line vs. Driving to the Store
Via Green Inc., the answer (sorta) to a question I posed a while back: Shoppers sitting in their living rooms and ordering items like hair-dryers or cameras online used 35 percent less energy, the study found, than people who shopped the old-fashioned way. “Customer transport” — in other words, driving to and from the mall …
Crying Drought
One of the common themes in drought journalism (mine at times included, sadly) is the tendency to cry “drought” at minor excursions into the down side of natural variability, when the real problem is not so much water supply as voracious consumption. Blaming nature is a whole lot easier than blaming ourselves. Is that the …
Global Warming Somehow Contributing to Home Runs in Texas
From the Guardian: “Global warming?” he sniffed. “Well, whatever.” Kinsler did appear to agree, however, that the conditions are subtly changing at the Ballpark. “It depends on where you hit the ball and what time of year it is,” said Kinsler. “Rudy is right in that balls you think you tagged will sometimes get knocked …
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Dry Colorado
Great piece by Matt Jenkins in the latest High Country News about the Colorado River, and how it doesn’t really have as much water as we think. If you care about western water (or love a good water yarn), go read the whole thing.
Elephant Diaries: On Feeling Outnumbered
We’ve always been outnumbered. It’s getting worse: Packs of lobbyists fill two rooms outside the House and Senate chambers in Richmond every afternoon, watching the proceedings on big video screens, zapping legislators with e-mails the instant the lobbyists sense that one of their bills might be in trouble. The interest groups that hire lobbyists can …
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The Dance of the Gasoline Prices
Clearing out some old piles of reading material, I ran across an old CBO report from a year ago on gasoline prices. It seems so long ago, my obsession with elasticities (short term and long) and the effect of rising energy prices on behavior large and small. Many drivers have responded to higher gasoline prices …