Noted environmentalist Bill McKibben believes there is a link between recent natural disasters, including the rash of deadly tornadoes, and global warming. GMU economist Donald Boudreaux is skeptical. In an op-ed in today’s WSJ he notes that 2011 has yet to see more F5 tornadoes (those with windspeeds between 261-318 mph) than 1953 or 1974. […]
Archive | Environment
Exaggerating Species Extinction
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 19, 2011 10:45 am in Endangered Species, Environment, Politicizing Science
A new paper in Nature has sparked a firestorm of debate over species extinction rates. The paper, by two ecologists, shows how the use of the species-area curve produces inflated projections of species extinction rates. As an accompanying article in Nature explains: The most common method of predicting extinction rates relies on the species–area curve, […]
Is Fair-Trade Coffee All that Fair?
Purchasing certified fair-trade, organic coffee helps improve the living conditions of coffee farmers in developing nations, right? Not necessarily. As Lawrence Solomon reports, a new study published in Ecological Economics found that over a ten-year period certified organic and organic fair-trade producers became poorer relative to conventional producers. Solomon comments: The fair-trade business is filled […]
Fracking and Flaming Faucets
A new study by researchers at Duke University found high levels of methane contamination in drinking water associated with hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania and New York — contamination that could be the cause of the infamous “flaming faucets” featured in “Gasland.” On the other hand, the study found no evidence “no evidence of contamination from […]
Endangered Species Science
By Jonathan H. Adler on May 4, 2011 11:58 pm in Endangered Species, Environment, Politicizing Science
Yesterday I appeared on NPR’s Dianne Rehm Show to discuss the Endangered Species Act. The show was prompted by Congressional passage of a budget rider removing gray wolves in the northern Rockies from the endangered species list. This was the first time Congress ordered a species delisted, and prompted complaints that Congress was intruding […]
Is FWS Asked to List Too Many Species?
The Fish and Wildlife Service claims it is overwhelmed by requests to list additional species as “endangered” or “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The NYT reports: The federal Fish and Wildlife Service is in emergency triage mode as it struggles with an avalanche of petitions and lawsuits over the endangered species list, the chief […]
Climate Change Back in the High Court
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, which presents the question whether states and environmentalist groups may sue utilities seeking injunctive relief for contributing to the “public nuisance” of global warming. This case languished before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for years before […]
In Defense of Fracking
The NYT‘s Joseph Nocera defends hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) for natural gas. To begin with, fracking is hardly new. In Texas and Oklahoma, it has been used for decades, with nobody complaining much about environmental degradation. It must be a coincidence that these worries surfaced when a natural gas field called the Marcellus Shale was […]
State Geologist Told to Shut the Frack Up
Ronald Bailey reports that the New York State Department of Education is muzzling the state’s “top geologist,” Langhorne “Taury” Smith, because he dared to question environmentalist attacks on the use of hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) to extract natural gas from shale deposits. This prompted a green backlash which, in turn, cause the state education department […]
Independent Assessment Finds Warming Too
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was launched to conduct a re-evaluation of the surface temperature record in order to resolve persistent debate over the reliability of prior analyses and provide an open record that could form the basis for future scientific research. The effort is led by several respected scientists, including UC Berkeley physicist […]
EPA’s New Mercury Controls
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new regulations governing emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants from power plants. This rule has been a long time coming. In the waning moments of the Clinton Administration, the EPA made a finding that would trigger mercury emission controls on power plants under the Clean Air […]
Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
That’s the title of a post on the Morgsatlarge, reprinting a letter from Dr. Josef Oehman of MIT. According to his web page, his main research interest is “risk management in the value chain, with a special focus on lean product development.” Although he’s a business professor and not a nuclear scientist, his father worked in […]
The GOP’s Climate Anti-Policy
Yesterday the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The NYT covers the vote here. This is a good first step on climate policy — but it should be just that, a first step. […]
Environmental Substance Abuse
Speaking of errors by economists, environmental attorney Mark Atlas has authored a substantial tome dissecting over 500 social science studies of environmental policy, and it’s not pretty. The 700-plus-page paper, “Environmental Substance Abuse: The Substantive Competence of Social Science Empirical Environmental Policy Research” is available on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In a 2002 article, […]
Stick a Fork in Capitol’s “Green” Utensils
When Democrats retook the U.S. House of Representatives, they set out to “green” the Capitol. One measure was the introduction of compostable eating utensils in the House cafeteria. The corn-based cutlery may work for some things, but it was not popular on Capitol Hill. As the Washington Post reports, the new utensils were more expensive, […]