September 2004 Archives

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is speaking tonight at Case Western Reserve University. Herewith is some running commentary on his talk.

The hall is packed, but is everyone here to see RFK? Leonardo DiCaprio is up first to deliver introductory remarks and Kennedy's introduction -- and he receives howls of glee from manyin the audience. Among other things, he notes the "wake up call" delivered by the infamous 1969 Cuyahoga river fire (well, kinda. I exploded that myth here and here). Now, Leonardo says, the Cuyahoga is burning again due to corporate lobbyists and the Bush Administration. Thankfully, he says, his friend Bobby Kennedy is spreading the word.

A report in the Financial Times (no link for nonsubscribers) notes a meeting in Brussels on 9/28 of the "Global Earth Observation System of Systems" or "GEOSS", which aims to pool environmental information from "more than 50" countries, "giving governments a better picture of the environment and allowing them to prepare better for problems." Conrad Lautenbacher, "a former US navy vice-admiral and one of the co-chairs of the GEOSS project" is quoted as saying "We have the technology, we have the social and economic need, and I think we have a lot more the willpower at the political level. The time is right to deal with this." The meeting was to work out governance issues. The goal: a November meeting in Ottawa followed by a February Brussels meeting (the "Earth Observation Summit") where "national ministers will be able to agree on a 10-year plan."

Is this a good thing? More data sounds good, but those "governance issues" might be an indication of problems - how much "governance" is needed, for example, to share (and post publicly) data? USEPA says the system will "revolutionize" our "understanding of how the earth works." EPA's wish list of benefits sounds great and the agency has links here. But some other stuff on the system has more green buzzwords.

Anyone have thoughts on whether this is a good thing?

Just got the new "Intelligence Outfitters" catalog from Terrific Toys, Inc. In the "Science Toys" section there are:
1) "Fossil Fuels are History" - fuel cell car experiment kit ($149.99) (ages 12 & up)
2) "It's All About Alternative Energy" - Power House ("Could you survive on an isolated island without the benefits of power and fuel? This comprehensive science kit integrates physical science and technology lessons to show you how.") (ages 12 through adult).

The stuff in this catalog is not all bad. Surprisingly, a game about "the greatest country on the planet" turns out NOT to be about France and is instead about the US! There is also a "game you'll play religiously" called "Ark of the Covenant" and there is a monopoly game set in colonial New England ("The early Pilgrims had to cope with adversity or die. Now, that's reality.") in which the players actually get private property. "In each round, players first buy land. They then attempt to develop it with buildings, populate it with Pilgrims, and sustain it by trade with ships. When the entire playing board is developed, players are awarded victory points corresponding to their accumulated possessions. Thus, the most successful settler wins."

Green blogger Mark Lynas would rather embrace an even more dumbed-down version of the Precautionary Principle (luddism) and impose more costly regulations than use biotech to improve CO2 trapping in trees:

Get this. Belgian biotechnologists have just cracked the DNA for the poplar tree, and issued a jubilant press release claiming that this is a vital step forward in the battle against global warming. How so? Well, now the tree genome is known, the scientists will be able to "modify trees genetically for the benefit of humankind and the environment", for example so that they "work more effectively in trapping CO2". Thanks but no thanks guys. You can stick your mutant trees. Those of us still living in the real world would prefer to carry on trying to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

Today the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Kelo et al v. City of New London. This is an important property rights case. As Lyle Denniston reports on SCOTUSBlog:

The New London property rights case is a highly significant test of the meaning of two words in the Constitution. It involves the scope of the Fifth Amendment protection against government taking of private property, unless the government plans a “public use” of what it has seized. The amendment also requires compensation for what has been taken, but that is not at issue in this case.

The Connecticut Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling on March 9, ruled that property may be taken for a public use so long as the result will be to create “public benefits,” such as creation of new jobs, increasing tax and other revenue, and contributing to urban revitalization. . . .

The New London case grows out of the efforts by a private corporation to redevelop an area of 90 acres in what is called the Fort Trumbull section of the city, along the Thames River. The project area has been occupied for years by private homes and small businesses. The development corporation, using property-seizure power delegated to it, planned seven parcels of renovation, with a new hotel and conference center, a high-tech research office building, parking and related services for a state park in the parcel, and other office space. Seven property owners challenged the seizure of their property, arguing that the project was not a “public use.”

The property-owners’ appeal to the Supreme Court said: “This is not a case that concerns the use of eminent domain for a traditional public use such as a road or public building; nor does it concern the use of eminent domain for the purpose of urban renewal/blight removal…Rather, this case presents a vital constitutional question that this Court has never before addressed: whether the public use clause of the Fifth Amendment…authorizes the exercise of eminent domain to help a government increase its tax revenue and to create jobs.”

A Better Earth has printed a piece of mine about a wonderful fishing/ranching operation in Belgrade, Montana, that is demonstrating how environmental stewardship can be tied to profitability.

The story of the Milesnicks is given in better detail in the book that I co-authored with Clay Landry for Purdue University Press: Ecological Agrarian.

Dan Cole, who is often skeptical of market solutions in environmental policy, has a new paper which, his abstract states, "raises questions about the marginal value of judicial intervention to protect private property rights in view of: (1) positive political-economic theories of property rights, according to which political institutions can be expected to substantially protect property rights in order to secure political support and generate tax revenues; and (2) hundreds of years of historical evidence from the UK, where property rights have never been judicially protected against intentional and uncompensated parliamentary expropriation or regulation, but where Parliament has imposed substantial limits, including compensation requirements, upon itself. In addition, the paper examines the political protection of property rights in various American states that have enacted takings statutes."

Wayne Crews passed along this NYTimes commentary by John Tierney, called "The Autonomist Manifesto (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Road). In it, Tierney discusses many of the issues surrounding sprawl, traffic and cars - including a counter-critique of many sprawl critiques. One interesting bit came in his opening paragraph, which referred to technologies able to keep "the cars spaced just 15 feet apart" as a means of relieving traffic congestion with the help of road sensors.

Another technology that has, perhaps, even more promise is mobile ad hoc networks. The German company Definiens had at one time been the leader in this type of technology. Daimler-Chrysler had huge investments in the project, in fact. The idea of the networks was based, interestingly, on the property of molecules going through a bottle neck. You know the phenomenon of traffic waves (go-stop-go-stop)? Apparently this happens in car clusters for reasons similar to physical gas laws. So the algorithms for optimizing the "spacing" of the molecules works pretty much for optimal spacing of cars to ameliorate gridlock on the interstate. The technology involved is a decentralized mobile network that emerges as the mobile units come into a certain range of each other.

The only problem? You lose control of your driving, which is to say your lead foot and your lane-changing. That's the trade-off--and some drivers may neither like it nor trust it. Since a grand cooperative/coordination strategy can only be carried out with highly sophisticated algorithms, drivers will have to cede control, not be so egoistic (i.e. fast), and have faith in the technology.

I admit, I would like it. In fact, I would be less likely to be overcome by roadrage if I knew that that really was as fast as the traffic could move and there were no a-holes driving down the shoulder to the bottleneck and then trying to get back in. But I'm not sure everyone else would like it (esp. the a-holes), so it may never become a common transportation phenomenon.

Still, the technology could have the unintended effect of reduced pollution and shorter drive-times - since the optimum distribution of cars is ceteris paribus ensured. Anyway, its something to think about this afternoon while you're sitting there listening to an add for "0.9% financing and $1000 cash back on your next SUV."

A recent expansion of interest in coal as fuel for electricity generation has re-kindled an old debate about California exporting pollution to neighboring states while importing their generation, as described here. Of course the debate has NOT been informed by the tremendous advancements in coal technology, with near-zero pollutant emissions from newest designs. Opponents of coal uniformily push for exclusive reliance on (the singularly most expensive) 'renewables'-- never natural gas or less expensive hydroelectric--or as Marie Antoinette said "let them eat cake." In this case however, THAT historically significant comment has been updated to "make them eat cake"

The United States government will seek new global regulations restricting trade in great white sharks and products derived therefrom at the October meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Thailand. According to the U.S. Interior Department, the new restrictions will help protect the sharks, which are often hunted for shark fin suit and other purposes. Given the poor history of CITES-imposed trade restrictions at conserving species, I'm skeptical the move will do much good. Nonetheless, seeking greater international regulations is hardly the sort of move one would expect from an administration allegedly out to gut all of environmental law.

On Friday, the California Air Resources Board unanimously adopted new regulations requiring significant cuts in automobile emissions of carbon dioxide. The NYT covers the move here, and the SacBee ran the AP story here (albeit with an exceedingly misleading headline -- the rules have nothing to do with "smog").

The rules will undoubtedly be challenged in court by automakers and other groups. Not only will the rules generate insignificant greenhouse gas reductions -- even were California to eliminate all automotive emissions, the impact on global emissions would be negligible -- but there is a strong argument the rules are illegal under federal law. Specifically, the 1975 federal energy conservation law, which provides for federal fuel economy standards, explicitly preempts state rules governing automobile fuel economy. Although the standards explicitly target CO2 emissions rather than fuel economy, CO2 emission rules inevitably entail controls on fuel consumption. On this basis, automakers will argue -- with some justification -- that the rules are de facto fuel economy standards.

For an overview of this and other arguments against the new California regulations, see CEI's comments on the initial CARB proposal here.

EPA has a new report on air pollution #s; and another one on acid rain. Mostly good news. Expect to see the media focus on the increase in SO2 between 2002-2003. Those are up 600,000 tons (to 15.8 million tons).

The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies has just released an online book about the impact of environmental issues for the 2004 elections. Authors include Deb Callahan of the League of Conservation Voters, Congressman Chris Shays, 2000 Presidential runner-up Al Gore, former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, and John Podesta. There is also a chapter by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. bashing the Bush Administration policies. The book (Red, White, Blue & Green: Politics and the Environment in the 2004 Election) can be downloaded from the School's website for free. I haven't had a chance to read all of the chapters, but for some of them at least, the price is just about right. Apologies to friends of mine who worked on the book, but I just think many assertions in the book cannot be defended and that is being kind.

For instance, Jonathan Adler's earlier critiques of Kennedy's general line of argument against the Bush environmental record can be found here as well as here.

Peter Menell has a paper exploring the impact of variable rate fees on recycling behaviro. He concludes they work. Paper on SSRN.

George Mason's Steve Eagle has a really fine paper on Environmental Amenities, Private Property and Public Policy forthcoming in a PERC-sponsored symposium in the Natural Resources Journal. You can read Steve's paper via SSRN as well. Definitely worth reading (the rest of the symposium is good too).

Here's the abstract: "Environmental amenities, like beautiful vistas and famous natural landmarks, are highly valued by many people, but it is difficult to determine what would constitute an optimal supply of them. Since enjoyment of an amenity by one person does not preclude enjoyment by many others, and it is impractical to limit such enjoyment to those who pay, individuals have an incentive to understate their demand for environmental amenities, thus leading to their underproduction. On the other hand, interest groups might spur government to overestimate the unarticulated demand. Furthermore, much demand is not policy relevant, since individuals with a moderate taste for particular amenities might be more than surfeited by the supply that others voluntarily provide. Building upon this framework, the author contends that commonly employed methodologies for ascertaining the value of amenities are seriously flawed, and that attempts to provide very high levels of amenities without commensurate public expenditures may damage private property rights. "

Shameless self promotion: the new PERC Reports has an article I wrote on a recycling firm succeeding in Guatemala without subsidies.

An excellent piece in the WSJ Europe (which, unlike the Financial Times allows linking for nonsubscribers!) by Kendra Okonski.

In an op-ed in last Friday's Financial Times, John Nugee and Avinash Persaud, both in finance, have an excellent column on the futility (and danger) of attempting to regulate risk away. Their article is about financial risk, but the thesis seems likely to be true for environmental risks too. A key section: "A dangerous misunderstanding over the nature of risk has meant that regulatory policy and practice contribute to greater instability. Regulators have tried to reduce risk. But a large proportion of risk is inherent. It cannot be reduced, only shifted around. Yet shifting risk may actually make matters worse."

The conclusion: "What parents do not want to provide as safe an environment for their children as they can? But shielding loved ones from all risk may make them more susceptible to the dangers of the outside world when they eventually leave the nest. In the same way, the regulators' desire to make the financial system safer may have made society less safe. The current course of regulation threatens to put a straitjacket on those who know what they are doing and force risk on to those who do not. This cannot be right. By ignoring the fluidity of risk and adopting a piecemeal approach we are in danger of unleashing a plague of hidden risks on those least able to withstand them."

A story in last Friday's Financial Times (I am catching up with overdue reading) entitled "Export Plan to Transform Indian Farming" (no links to the story b/c the FT requires subscriptions to the site, here's the FT site) includes the fascinating fact that "up to 40 percent of fruit and vegetable production in India goes to waste because" of limited infrastructure for refrigeration and storage. Pretty amazing number - worth considering when reading stories about the virtues of sustainable peasant agriculture.

From the New Yorker profile of THK: "What was once one of America’s most polluted cities is now, according to Heinz Kerry, one of its cleanest, in part because of her environmental leadership. Like the new convention center several blocks away, for which she sponsored a design contest, the offices are so scrupulously 'green' that one can, in theory, eat the carpets." Just in case you disagree, be warned that she feels that she has "paid my dues" and so need not "put up with any more stuff I don’t want to. Finito." Deciding this "was the most liberating thing in the world.”
Other environmental tidbits: THK met JFK at Earth Day in 1990 and reconnected (after her husband's death) as delegates to the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.

The Wall Street Journal's page one story on the "peak-oil" theory on how we are about to start not having enough oil (story here, requires subscription) describes the theories of Dr. Colin Campbell, a prominent "peak oil" theorist (in a nutshell, we've reached the peak of reserves and are now on the down hill slope). What is interesting is Dr. Campbell's reaction to the most prominent critic of the theory mentioned in the article, Michael Lynch. Here's what the article says: "Dr. Campbell so dislikes Mr. Lynch that he has declined invitations to appear with him in debates. 'It's like asking a doctor to talk about medicine with a faith healer,' Dr. Campbell says. He calls Mr. Lynch 'the high priest of the flat-earth economists.'"

Let's see - someone proposes a theory that reaches conclusions dramatically different from all of natural resource economics and most everyone else, and his response to someone questioning his theory (which predicted that we'd hit the peak in 1995, then when we didn't, moved it to 2005) a "faith healer" and equates the person with all the natural resource economists on his side to a flat earther? It certainly fills me with confidence that Dr. Campbell won't debate people with whom he disagrees. Lynch has a good critique of Campbell here. There is also a good 2001 piece from The Economist here which terms Lynch "one of the few oil forecasters who has got things generally right."

Maybe this was supposed to be one of those stories they used to run in the center column on cute animals and odd people.....

The Financial Times (no links to letters) today also has a letter from Jos Dings, the director of the European Federation for Transpor and Environment in Brussels, calling on Tony Blair to block a proposed resolution being proposed by the US at the upcoming Montreal meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization. According to Mr. Dings, the resolution "will have the effect of blocking member states from implementing their own policies in this area" and "severely hamper" EU efforts to include aviation emissions in the global warming efforts underway there. "Now is the time for Mr. Blair to show leadership by building a coalition of the willing to reject the move. Only then will European governments, and indeed other members of the ICAO that take climate policy seriously, be able to choose the most appropriate response to the climate threat posed by the rapidly growing aviation industry." Dings closes with the ringing (sorry, couldn't help it) statement that "it is not the time for the US to be, once again, dictating climate policy to countries that have already woken up to the danger." Now, given EU reluctance to negotiate real open-skies agreements with the US, the UK and French subsidies to the highly polluting Concorde, and their appalling record on subsidizing Airbus, could it be possible that a climate change policy on aviation emissions might, possibly, just maybe, do something for Airbus at Boeing's expense? I don't know, but I hope the US delegates to the ICAO meeting do.

According to today's Financial Times (sorry, no links without a subscription), Russia and China blocked the listing of chrysotile asbestos to the list of "hazardous chemicals that cannot be exported to developing countries without their knowledge and agreement." (14 others were added to the existing 27 on the list.) The EU denounced this, as did the World Wildlife Fund: "The failure to list chrysotile asbestos is a bad omen for the [Rotterdam] convention, risking serious harm by sending a signal that the convention's requirements do not need to be taken seriously." The FT reports that the substance is "a sensitive economic issue for Russia and Canada, where production is concentrated in the French-speaking province of Quebec." Canada voting its economic self-interest on environmental matters? I am shocked, shocked. To read more on chrysotile asbestos, see an industry view here, an Australian regulatory view here or the recent, critical editorial in the Toronto Star.

In a new paper, a pair of economists from Berkeley and MIT report that improved air quality boosts housing values. The paper is available on SSRN here.

The bottom line is that the authors believe their fairly sophisticated (hey, it's an MIT economist writing this) technique offer an opportunity to use markets to value environmental amenities.

This disturbing article on A Better Earth shows how that beacon of virtuous bureacracy and efficiency - the UN - is getting its tentacles around US forestry policy. If this story is accurate, it's another example of how the regulatory monster slowly consumes everything. Frightening.

It is because of things like this...

To many, this suggests a global warming fingerprint: The accumulation of greenhouse gases -- principally carbon dioxide -- has driven world temperatures to new heights (2002 and 2003 tied for second place after 1998 as the warmest years ever).

The data quality, or information quality, act required OMB and federal agencies to establish guidelines for the data that they data they disseminate in order to maximize quality, utility, objectivity and integrity of information. The goal was to limit the practice of "regulation by publication," or using the governmental impramatur to, e.g., scare Alar off the shelves, or provide trial lawyers fodder for the rash of pending "global warming" lawsuits to require U.S. industry to pay for Third World weather.

Although every single request for correction has been rejected, as has every appeal, even the potential threat of information quality guidelines is apparently just too much for global warming alarmists. See the following e-mail received from Hill staff in the know. It looks like someone -- whom the author speculates to be Senator McCain -- has sneakily inserted an exemption for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to make it the only executive agency excluded (de jure) from informtaion quality requirements.

A friend of mine returned from China this year after having lived there for 18 months. He and his wife were teaching English to Chinese children in an urban area.

The children often referred to the odorous gray haze outside the classroom window as "fog." Grown-ups called it that too, thanks to the People's Dictionary. But my friend knew the difference between airborne filth and a low-hanging cloud. Stories like this verify his accounts.

Today I'm attending the Claremont Institute conference on Defending the Constitution: Property Rights & the New Regulation. Topics to be covered span from property theory, zoning, land-use controls and "smart growth," among other things. I will update this post throughout the day to comment on the proceedings.

A new report commissioned by the California Air Resources Board apparently confirms what many experts already knew: mandatory oxygenate requirements for gasoline do not produce cleaner air. To the contrary, requiring the use of ethanol -- the oxygenate of political choice -- actually increases emissions of ozone-forming compounds. The report is available here.

Where is there to build a new golf course in heavily urbanized areas, like northern New Jersey? How about a former waste site? Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal featured a story on the Liberty National Golf Course, a $129 million project underway to create a premier golf course on a fomer waste site along the New York Harbor. While more expensive than most, this project is hardly unique. Over the past 40 years, the WSJ reports, over 70 golf courses have been built on former waste sites nationwide. Golf courses are well suited for former waste sites because, unlike office buildings or other structures, they don’t place much weight on the ground, which can essentially squeeze contaminants out of the soil – contaminants that would otherwise harmlessly stay put. This is simply another good example of why the sort of remediation necessary at a given waste site is very much a factor of intended future uses – and any policy that fails to take this into account wastes money, increases environmental risks, or both.

The NYT summarizes the Bush administration environmental record here (and in an accompanying graphic with a pop-up link on that page) -- and it's far more balanced (and accurate) than RFK!

For what it's worth, the administration defends its own environmental record here. As it makes clear, the environmentalist attacks are overstated, but there's not all that much for free market types to cheer.

This morning NRO posted my thoughts on RFK Jr's latest attacks on the President's environmental record (during our debate on NPR). In short, Kennedy's claims are only getting more outlandish as time goes on. There's plenty to criticize in the Bush environmental record, but some of Kennedy's claims are just preposterous. (See also here.)

The Financial Times has an excellent column today by Patti Waldmeir on "Why we need a victory in the war against parking lots" that takes on the abuse of eminent domain by developers. She discusses the recent Michigan Supreme Court case and a pending case in the US Supreme Court. The column concludes "Nobody should be forced to sell their home simply because special interests have captured local governments. Developers should take their chances in the market like all the rest of us." If only she had said "Developers and green pressure groups....." Unfortunately the FT requires a subscription for online access, so I cannot post a link.

An alert reader pointed out that Juan Non-Volokh's posts on organic food can be found by going directly to his 9/9 post here rather than using my hack "link and scroll" method. Plus the link will work even when Juan's comments move into the archive.

The latest issue of PERC Reports is now available. The cover story asks whether we are running out of oil, and Rob Bradley explains why we are not.

Other articles in this issue cover private recycling in Guatemala, problems with fisheries management, and dealing with mosquitos in wetland restoration.

Recent Court action takes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to task for incorrectly calculating refunds stemming from the California Capacity Crisis (note--there really was never an energy crises--there was plenty of energy, just in the wrong place and wrong time). Numerous 'self congratulatory' articles abound, including this one.

Problem though is that the Court apparently forgot the idea of 'contributory negligence.' If someone is harmed but also through their own action increases the harm, any compensation is proportional to the responsibility--In this case, had California not invoked the warned-against "reverse Dutch Auction" aka. second price auction, aka idiocy..the damage to Californioa ratepayers would likely have been <10% of what actually took place. FERC in the original calculation was actually pretty generous to California. In other words the Regulators in California who misforecast suppilies and insisted on the Reverse Dutch auction are responsible for at least 90% of the actual damage (we can quibble about the actual percentage but it is demonstrably somewhere around 65-90%)

note--I neither work for any of the utilitries nor any of the power producers/marketers, but am a ratepayer.

Juan Non-Volokh on the excellent Volokh Conspiracy blog posted a good link to an LA Times story on organic labels and some skepticism about the health claims for organic foods. The story is here. Juan's post is here (scroll down to the 9/9 section) From there he has excellent links to good prior posts on the topic.

A recent article published in the LA Times reports that researchers have found air pollution is reducing mountain snowfall, a critical source of water for the West. The entire article is found here. The gist of the aricle is that pollution--primarily particulate matter acting as nucleation sites--reduces the amount of snow fall by reducing the water content of individual snow flakes. The dire warning is that the West will likely run out of water by continued air pollution.

This study of course raises the question of whether historical seeding efforts have been successful or a waste of time (I think not.) More importantly, it fails to recognize the historical downward trend in pollutant loading overall.

PERC research associate Holly Fretwell makes a practical case for increased decentralization of federal land management in today's Billings Gazette.

Holly Fretwell writes:

Citizens living closest to the lands are the most greatly affected by them. They bear the biggest burden of any environmental harms and dangers such as wildfire, the sight of massive clearcuts, or sediment-filled creeks. And they reap the most immediate benefits, whether from clean water, developed campsites or harvest or recreation use.

Those citizens should have greater weight in deciding how those lands are used than legislators acting collectively in Washington, D.C.

Nixon to China, Bush to Kyoto - one of a series of 4 articles from Washington Monthly on "What if Bush Wins" - this is the scariest (Todd Gitlin suggests street fighting may happen, Cass Sunstein says the courts will turn right, and Grover Norquist says the Democrats are toast) - Gregg Easterbrook says W will impose global warming controls.

Sorry Florida, says Reuters. The hurricanes are normal.

In fact, says the report, given its location, Florida has been very lucky not to have had more hurricanes over the last forty years.

One of the largest market obstacles for natural gas vehicles has been the lack of an extensive retail fuel infrastructure. Gasoline stations are ubiquitous, but it's hard to find somewhere to refuel a natual gas car. Even electric vehicles are more practical -- as you can plug those in at home. As a result, this has meant that the natural gas has only been a cost-effective fuel choice for centralized fleets with their owen refuelilng stations, such as buses, delivery trucks, and utility vehicles. That may begin to change, however. Honda is announcing that it will begin selling home refueling units for natural gas vehicles, and expects to market the device in California and a few other states. It will be interesting to see whether this development increases consumer acceptance of natural gas vehicles.

A new EPA report announces that summertime nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants and other large sources in eastern states declined by 30 percent since 2002 (and 70 percent from 1990), despite increases in energy production. The EPA claims these reductions show the NOx Budget Trading Program is a success.

Today I participated in a live chat on globalwarming.org on the state AGs' suit against several utilities alleging that they are contributing to the "public nuisance" of global warming. The text is here.

Ken Green of the Fraser Institute gives a solid overview of risk analysis for those who think federal monies are in infinite supply. The crux:

Activists tend to disdain the idea of basing policy on traditional risk analysis and benefit-cost analysis, preferring to invoke the “precautionary principle” as a rationale for addressing every risk with every possible resou