May 2005 Archives

A USA Today headline.

Unfortunately for those of us hoping that lupine science would improve the average quality of work on the issue, it turns out that it is the study of the wolves that is intended to reveal global warming's impacts. As usual, data in any direction supports the conclusion that we are all doomed. On Isle Royale on Lake Superior, wolves eat more moose because of global warming - and it's bad. But on Canada's Ellesmere Island, wolves are eating less and so have moved elsewhere - and it's bad.

Hat tip: OpinionJournal's May 31st "Best of the Web Today".

The New York Times reports that housing prices in many markets are far too high, at least when compared with rents in the same markets. Nationally, home prices increased from about 12 times annual rents in 2000 to 17 times today. But in many California markets, prices are more than 25 times rents.

This is, of course, just the latest of many reports of a housing "bubble." But few reporters have bothered to ask why some markets have a bubble while other fast-growing markets do not. The usual answer is that the bubbles are on the coast because everyone is moving there, but many fast-growing regions in the West and South do not appear to have a bubble.

The answer appears to be that "smart growth" and other growth-management policies restrict housing supply. Since housing is an inelastic good, a small restriction on supply leads to rapid increases in prices. This brings speculators into the market -- and a large percentage of homes today are being purchased with no-down-payment, interest-only loans by people who don't plan to live in the homes; in other words, speculators.

A list of regions that are suffering bubbles reveals that a very high percentage have implemented some form of growth management such as urban-growth boundaries, greenbelts, or restrictions on building permits.

One exception that probes the rule is Las Vegas, which has remained very affordable despite being the fastest-growing urban area in the U.S. -- until three years ago, when prices started rapidly increasing. Since Nevada is almost entirely federally owned, Las Vegas depends on federal land sales to meet the demand for housing. But environmental restrictions have limited sales in the past few years, limiting housing supply.

As long as builders can keep up with the demand for housing, markets should not suffer bubbles. As long as planners try to impose their visions of utopia on urban areas, homebuyers will suffer high prices and volatile markets. For more information, see my article on smart growth and housing bubbles.

B.C., a comic strip that often draws on political themes, had a great summary of the Endangered Species Act on Friday, May 27. The comic is on the home page of the strip today, after today it will be in the online archive for awhile.

The Beartooth Highway, which noted traveler Charles Kuralt once referred to as "the most scenic drive in America," may be closed for the summer due to mudslides from a wet season to the east of Yellowstone. The pictures of the slide in the Billings Gazette are rather good. While the water is welcome news to those fighting off a long drought in the area and for keeping down forest fires, it has put a road that I travel at least once a summer for the stunning views completely out of commission.

Almost ten years ago, Terry Anderson and Mark Liffman proposed that maybe it was time for the road to become a toll road due to its high maintenance costs and extensive tourist travel. By linking the costs imposed on the road by tourists with revenues to support the road, the road would be better maintained and the citizens of Montana would not be the ones footing the maintenance costs for thousands of out-of-staters each year. A multiple-use or year-round pass for locals could help keep the costs down for the frequent travelers over the roadway.

With the recent mudslides, this might be the best time yet for a toll on the road. One can guarantee that the effort to get the road back up and running would kick into overdrive if Yellowstone National Park and the State of Montana were missing out on potential toll dollars with each passing day.

In California today, a plant once thought extinct was rediscovered. In New Zealand, a bug pulled off the same feat. And, last month, it was the ivory-billed woodpecker. But none of those stories can top the efforts of Australian researchers to not just find a once-thought extinct animal, but rather to bring one back from the dead. Well...sort of. If the Australian researchers get their way, even already extinct animals may prove far more resilient than once thought. The researchers have revived a program to clone the extinct Tasmanian tiger.

US PIRG released a report claiming that higher automobile fuel economy (aka "CAFE") standards would have saved American consumers billions of dollars, but the reality is such standards would leave consumers much worse off. Consumers are already fully capable of buying more fuel efficient vehicles if they so choose. Many don't because other features -- price, safety, performance, utility -- are more important. Mandating higher fuel economy would cause consumers to spend less on gasoline, but they would be forced to make other sacrifices -- sacrifices a large number of consumers clearly do not want to make as shown by their car purchase habits. It's a curious definition of consumer interest that believes consumers are better off if they are less able to purchase what they want.

Do religious conservatives believe conservation is unimportant because Christ's return is iminent? You could be forgiven for thinking so had you read various articles by Bill Moyers or the folks at Grist (and missed the subsequent corrections).

Many of such tales have been told about Reagan Administration Interior Secretary James Watt. Well, Watt's not happy about it, and defends himself in today's Washington Post. I'm not much of a Watt fan, but his article makes a strong case that Moyers, the National Council of Churches and others spread lies and calumny about Watt and other religious conservatives. Moyers apologized. No word from the NCC.

For more on this story, see the Powerline posts here and here.

Once again we are told – this time by former President Clinton -- that “global warming is the biggest challenge the world faces, but too many people don't take it seriously.” [See here.] This assertion, of course, is never accompanied by any showing that of all the problems in the world, this one is paramount. The only analyses that I know of that has actually bothered to compare climate change against other problems facing humanity or the environment finds that at least through the foreseeable future, the problems due to climate change for the most part are relatively small compared to existing problems such as malaria, hunger, water shortages and threats to biodiversity. The most recent of these analyses – Indur Goklany’s Is Climate Change the 21st Century’s Most Urgent Environmental Problem? – can be found here.

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(shameless self promotion) Niger Innis (National Spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality in New York) and I jointly wrote an editorial which has been published in today's Wall Street Journal Europe, called 'The real bloodsuckers'.

The article explores threats made by the EU against Uganda if it decides to use DDT in its public health programme. This has been widely reported in the Ugandan media. A newsletter on the EU's own website outlines the perverse rationale of their threats.

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In late April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Earl Jones, an Idaho rancher who was the defendant in a case brought by two Idaho environmental groups.

The case concerns the use of evidence and proof in attaining an injunction under the Endangered Species Act. The environmental groups asserted without proof that by diverting water from a creek to its alfalfa farm, the Jones family harmed bull trout, which are protected under the ESA.

In a press release by the Pacific Legal Foundation (which represented Jones' case), said that the case is significant because "it is the first time the Ninth Circuit has clarified the type of evidence that must be demonstrated in order for an environmental plaintiff to obtain an injunction under the ESA."

PLF explains further that:

The Ninth Circuit’s ruling clarifies — for the first time — that environmental plaintiffs must present actual evidence that a species is likely to be harmed before an injunction can be issued against a property owner, and that a lack of evidence of past harm is indicative of the likelihood of future harm.

The NYT's John Tierney is happy some environmentalists are reconsidering the costs and benefits of nuclear power, but not so thrilled that Congress wants to lavish another layer of subsidies on the industry. Alas we've seen this all before.

Environmentalists originally supported nuclear power because of its obvious benefits: no dirty air from smokestacks, no need to strip the ground for coal or dig for oil. Economic benefits, however, were not so obvious to investors, who were leery of the plants' costs and new problems, like accidents and waste disposal.

But Washington decided that nuclear power was so good for the environment and national security - how would America cope with the crisis when fossil fuels ran out? - that it should be subsidized. The federal government exempted the industry from full liability for accidents and took responsibility for waste disposal.

If Washington hadn't acted, nuclear power plants wouldn't have been built so fast, maybe not at all. But if the industry had been forced to deal with the costs and the risks on its own, it might have developed cheaper, simpler, more reliable plants.

I don't know whether nuclear is the answer or not. It, but I agree with Tierney's primary points. First, nuclear power should be on the table as a potential energy source. Second, government does a poor job of picking winners and losers in the marketplace and energy subisidies are a waste of money, whether they go to nuclear or anything else.

The Endangered Species Act has long been used by activists of various stripes to stop unwanted development projects. Where an endangered species can be found, the relatively inflexible provisions of sections 7 and 9 are particularly well suited to halting development in its tracks. In the 1990s, a major timber company was even caught employing wildlife biologists to survey land used by its competitors for listed species, hoping to use the ESA to gain a comparative advantage.

This story, courtesy of Tom Tanton, presents a simlar tale with an intersting twist.

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The NYT reports on the growing number of environmentalists reconsidering the merits of nuclear power in the face of climate change. "It's not that something new and important and good had happened with nuclear, it's that something new and important and bad has happened with climate change," says Whole Earth catalog founder Stewart Brand (whose previous remarks on the subject I blogged here). Among others slowly reconsidering nuclear's merits, according to the story, are Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense, Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute, and Gus Speth of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Others hold out hope that modern civilization's energy needs can be met by wind, solar, geothermal and biomass energy.

I just got back from a pleasant hike in Mill Creek Metropark, and it got me thinking about park policy. Ohio has a fairly extensive state park system, that includes 74 state parks. Ohio also has quite a few Metroparks like Mill Creek, where there are some great trails for short afternoon hikes now that northeast Ohio finally has tolerable weather.

Use of Ohio's state parks is "free" -- rather, it is "unpriced." Ohio taxpayers pay for the parks whether they use them or not. This was scheduled to change this year, as the Ohio state park system proposed instituting parking fees -- $5/day or $25/year -- to help cover park maintenance, upkeep, and the like. Yet as often happens when park user fees are proposed, many park users rise up in arms. "We already pay for parks with our taxes," they say. Indeed they do, but so do people who don't use the parks. Ohio has the third most visited state park system in the country, and yet much of the system is paid out of general funds. General funding of state parks amount to substantial cross subsidies of recreational activity. People like me get the benefit of having other Ohioans help pay for our preferences. Why is that fair?

Well, not all park users feel as I do. They raised a stink, and the state backed down. Apparently newly discovered "budget solutions" make the proposed park fees unnecessary. Thus, the cross subsidies will continue, and Ohio's park system won't benefit from the positive economic incentives that result from tying its funding to the benefits it provides users. It's a shame.

One of the great success stories of free market environmentalism has been the activities of British angling clubs, who have been jealously protecting their right to fish in clean rivers since 1948. The Guardian has a good story on the success of the Anglers' Conservation Association today, something that also points out how much more successful the Anglers have been than the UK government's Environment Agency in conserving the rivers:

"We're very distinct from the Environment Agency [EA]," says Mark Lloyd, director of the ACA. "When fish kills are reported to the agency's hotline, it will invest resources and expertise to investigate the incident and bring a prosecution under criminal law. The fines are usually low, about £15,000, and go straight to the government for lighting streets or running hospitals. Any money raised from fines does not go back to the rivers.

"The ACA may follow the EA on a case, but we seek and win damages through the civil courts where we have to prove 51% probability - not 'reasonable doubt'. These damages are much greater than fines, and the money all goes back to fishing clubs for restoring rivers. We've had some big wins, like £450,000 following a pollution incident on the river Eden in Cumbria in 1999. It was used to set up the Eden Rivers Trust, which has generated millions to restore and manage this beautiful river."

In fact, the ACA is currently suing the Environment Agency for damage to its fish to the tune of about $800,000.

This all works because anglers pay for the right to fish and the law of nuisance compensates them for damage to the value of that property. The laws of economics and enlightened self-interest take care of the rest.

Well, actually The Knowledge Problem on power and related issues. Some worthwhile posts on the energy bill, the Economist's survey of oil, and related stuff. See here and here.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has a new blog. I suspect they will post much with which we disagree (and vice-versa).

Two weeks ago I had a chance to visit Halle-Neustadt, which an urban planner once told me was one of the most sustainable (i.e., least auto-dependent) cities in the world. It turns out it was only sustainable when its people were kept oppressed and poor by East German dictators; as soon as Germany reunified, the residents either bought cars or simply moved out.

The principles behind Halle-Neustadt are described in detail in a 1971 book titled The Ideal Communist City, which was written by planners from the University of Moscow. Everyone should live in mixed-use, mixed-income communities close to mass transit, said the book, while autos should be discouraged because they created too much congestion.

These principles are nearly identical to those of "smart-growth" planners. The only significant differences are that smart growth allows for some variation in the size of homes and prefers mid-rise construction (4 to 6 stories) instead of high rise. But both the communists and the smart-growth planners believe that an elite should decide how other people should live and move around.

You can read my full report of Halle-Neustadt and the Ideal Communist City in my Vanishing Automobile update #53.

An article from the Telegraph explains that notable scientists are worried that a desire to get political action on the climate change front has led to the expunging of any climate change skepticism from the two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature. The scientists rightly worry that expunging valid scientific research from the debate just because it contradicts the climate change "consensus" undermines the whole bedrock on which the scientific process is built.

Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren explain how both Republicans and Democrats are advocating nonsensical energy policies. NR's Rich Lowry agrees.

But it gets even worse, as Gristmill reports some members of Congress are starting to embrace "peak oil" theories. (Wasn't it just a few years ago that Scientific American was excoriating Bjorn Lomborg for suggesting anyone believed in looming oil shortages? Just checking.)

Exactly one hundred years ago on July 1, the American people were blessed with the founding of the US Forest Service, which is honouring the 100th anniversary of its establishment on July 1, 2005. Yes, that is sarcasm you detect; stay tuned for more.

It is remarkable how xenophobia, which most thinking people scorn when displayed toward fellow human beings, is becoming the norm with regard to non-human species. This bioxenophobia has spawned active programs in the US and worldwide to root out “alien,” “invasive” or “non-native” species. But if it’s okay to stamp out such offending species, why not sub-species of humans that are also alien, invasive or non-native, such as the vast majority of the US population which is clearly non-native -- or descendants of non-native sub-species?

To carry the analogy a little further, not only are these people aliens, they have done considerable ecological damage in North America. In fact, since they are directly or indirectly responsible for the introduction of the majority of non-human invasive species, the extent of the ecological damage wrought by these alien humans necessarily exceeds the damage done by all non-native species ranging from purple loosestrife to the brown snake to the zebra mussel. Notably, Pimentel and others estimate that alien species cost the US between $100 and $200 billion per year, although, as Mark Sagoff and Ron Bailey have noted, they failed to account for any benefits associated with non-native species, such as much of our agricultural output. [This is very familiar methodology -- proclaim the costs but stay silent about the benefits, and then trumpet the precautionary principle. Witness the DDT story, or the green case against GM crops.]

Could not the logic that compels the extermination of non-native/invasive species also be applied to alien humans? Conversely, if extermination of non-native human beings cannot be justified, how can it be justified when the species in question is other than human? Are these rules different for humans and for other species? What makes xenophobia unacceptable, but bioxenophobia commendable?

To add to my pre-existing doubts about the war against the aliens, now comes Alan Burdick’s cover story, The Truth About Invasive Species, in the May issue of Discover magazine. It suggests, among other things, that the threat of non-human varieties of aliens is probably just as exaggerated as it is for the human variety.