Will Canada and the U.S. go to war over water?

No. But a story by Mark Hume in the Globe and Mail illustrates the delicacies of transboundary water questions, and by coincidence is one of two interesting examples of the problem that scrolled across my monitor this morning. Hume’s story details objections by residents of British Columbia to a dam being contemplated in Washington state …

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What a Housing Bubble Looks Like

Here’s what a housing bubble looks like. Housing prices. Red is Arizona, green is Nevada, blue is us here in New Mexico. The three states track together since the 1970s (off to the left of what’s displayed in this graph). Prices in Arizona and Nevada shoot up beginning around 2004, then collapse pretty dramatically. Click …

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The Greening of Europe Taking a Back Seat to the Economy?

When environmental push comes to economic shove, European Union ministers seem willing to back down on the EU’s tough environmental regulations to help limit the economic damage caused by “leakage” (production moving out of the EU to unregulated countries), according to this story: EU ministers responsible for industry, trade and research are due to agree …

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Unknowability

One of our great difficulties, whether the subject is climate change or the economy, is the problem of decision-making in the face of uncertainty. We want to know the right answer, and the lack of one makes us uncomfortable. But, as Win Quigley points out, sometimes that’s just the way it is: Every economist and …

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Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Realities of Cap and Trade

From this morning’s Albuquerque Journal, a look at the difficulties in Congress as greenhouse gas regulation becomes real rather than an abstract exercise: Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., was one of 26 Democrats who joined Republicans last week in voting to make it harder for the Senate to act quickly on President Barack Obama’s greenhouse gas …

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