Atomic Tests Were a Tourist Draw in 1950s Las Vegas – entrepreneurial alterness alert
10 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, environmentalism, health and safety, market efficiency, survivor principle Tags: entreprunerial alterness, times have changed
Over 1000 tests from 1951 onwards.
What is a useful idiot?
06 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in environmentalism, liberalism, political change, politics, war and peace Tags: bootleggers and baptists, environmentalists, Leftover Left, New Left, Old Left, political manipulation, propaganda, useful idiots
Useful idiot is a term for people perceived as propagandists, initially Lenin, for a cause whose goals they are not fully aware of, and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause.
Many confused and misguided sympathisers will unwittingly support a malignant cause which they naïvely believe to be a force for good.
Science aware environmentalists will sign a petition to ban H2O
05 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in environmentalism Tags: Penn and Teller, the ignorance of environmentalists
The growth of knowledge is through critical discussion, conjecture and refutation
04 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
The seen and the unseen: electric cars – where does the electricity come from?
02 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
The great cost of energy efficient building codes
02 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, urban economics Tags: energy efficient building codes, green rent seeking
Koirala, Bohara and Berrens (2014) found that requiring energy efficiency building codes raises housing prices but they then attempted to find out if this price rise is offset by reductions in household energy expenditures down the road.
Using sample data from the American Community Survey 2007, they found that energy efficiency regulations in building codes, once capitalized, increases housing rents by 23.35 per cent. The offset in reduced monthly energy expenditures only amounts to 6.47 per cent. The codes cost $163.19 per month and only save us $7.71.
HT: Richard Tol
Government recycling interferes with private recycling
02 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism Tags: expressive voting, recycling
It is a crime in New York to steal garbage put out for recycling.
Carbon credits are bad for the Forests
01 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: carbon credits, global warming, unintended consequence
Via The-Galileo-Movement and dailymail.co.uk
The poor carbon footprint of wind and solar
01 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: bootleggers and baptists, global warming, green rent seeking, solar power, wind power
Paul Joskow pointed out that these costs do not take account of the costs of intermittency: wind power is not generated on a calm day, nor solar power at night. Conventional power plants must be kept on standby. Electricity demand also varies during the day in ways that the supply from wind and solar generation may not match.
HT: The Economist via Sinclair Davidson
Why charging for plastic bags doesn’t work
31 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, environmental economics, environmentalism Tags: expressive voting, plastic bags, recycling
My local supermarket tried to charge for plastic bags then backed down because of customer protests.
In the UK, a compulsory 5p charge on plastic bags first resulted in a sharp drop consumption then a rise in in the use of plastic bags last year. It seems the immediate change in behaviour reaped by the new charges is short-lived and it doesn’t take long for old habits to re-emerge.
Attaching a cost to something that was free certainly reduces frivolous consumption, but if that cost that is too low can merely act to pay off one’s conscience.
Beware of putting a price on guilt and letting people down.
A classic paper from 2000, Gneezy and Rustichini studied what happened when day-care centres in Israel tried to reduce late parental pick-ups by introducing fines.
Before long, late pick-ups had not reduced, they had doubled. Why? Because parents felt that the fine was a price worth paying and the guilt which had previously controlled their behaviour was assuaged.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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