A Solution in Search of a problem Thanks to Spencer Banzhaf for his article, “The Case for Cap-and-Trade” as a market application to fossil fuel use. Certainly, once a cap-and-trade system is operating, prices would be set by market trading, responding either to pricing (or taxing) emissions; or setting a quota on allowable emissions. TheContinue reading “Comments on PERC Reports Summer 2011”
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From Green Energy Revolution to Green Gridlock
“Green energy” generation is being curtailed, delayed, or prohibited due to competing environmental goals. For example wind turbines are killing endangered bats.
A market-ready solution for Las Vegas water
To keep the water running in LasVegas, recognize scarcity and let water rates rise– double or even triple. Encourage homeowners to trade water rights. Let the market determine how much water people use, not the water police.
How Will We Adapt to Climate Change?
Capitalism’s creative solutions for a changing climate.
Another Setback for Cape Wind
In 2002, federal reguators predicted it would take between 18-months and three-years for the proposed Cape Wind energy project in Nantucket Sound to receive federal approval. Nearly ten years later, the project is still awaiting full federal clearance, and has yet to begin construction. Full operation remains at least two years away. On Friday, the CapeContinue reading “Another Setback for Cape Wind”
A Decade to Determine Nothing
The Clinton administration signed off on the Roadless Rule [PDF] in 2001 to preserve 58.5 million acres of national forest land by preventing road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest. The lands designated for roadless protection were inventoried in the 1970s to determine their merit for inclusion into the National Wilderness system. Some are now Wilderness; the restContinue reading “A Decade to Determine Nothing”
Halloween fright, population fear are both fantasy
As our quality of life continues to improve, the world’s prevailing sentiment continues to be one of a disastrous future, all because the population has reached 7 billion. Are these worries real or just a scare tactic?
Namibia Has A Lesson For Migrating Yellowstone Bison
Last year’s massive winter bison migration from Yellowstone National Park caused significant damage to surrounding ranches. Says one landowner: “When we’ve got 30 to 40 [bison] coming through my place at one time, they want to go through the fences, rub on my house, destroy my irrigation pipes.” Federal and state authorities captured and returned asContinue reading “Namibia Has A Lesson For Migrating Yellowstone Bison”
Don’t Bother with “The Darwin Economy”
I purchased The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good by Robert Frank thinking I would learn something. I did. I learned that I should not have purchased it. Frank takes a very simple game theory used to explain the arms race (and naively applies it to elk antlers, arguing that one elk grows big antlers and getsContinue reading “Don’t Bother with “The Darwin Economy””
Fencing Fisheries in Namibia and Beyond: Lessons From the Developing World
The lessons from Namibia and other fisheries success stories discussed in this essay illustrate that property rights and environmental protection can happen anywhere.