- Montana’s glaciers are shrinking, but they have been shrinking since the 1850s (and faster before 1966).
- A new poll “obliterates the notion that 97 percent of scientists believe we are facing a severe climate crisis.”
- The Swiss are considering banning electric vehicles if it gets very cold this winter.
- The New York Times blames private owners for failing to allow access to public land (the problem stems from nineteenth-century government policy).
- Relying on wind and solar power requires “staggering” amounts of storage and the idea of electrical grids relying on them is”completely impractical and unaffordable.”
So, Is the Social Cost of Carbon Infinitely Stretchable?
The EPA recently proposed a new, much higher “social cost of carbon” or SCC—raising it from from $51 to $190 per metric ton of carbon dioxide. In the Trump administration it was between $1 and $7 per ton. I’ll explain just what SCC is, but, first, I note that commentary from economists is generally positive,…
Please, No More Trees
Drought-resistant trees are replacing grasslands around the world, and, specifically in the western United States. This is a problem? Yes, says Brianna Randall in Wired. “According to University of Montana researcher Scott Morford, who led the study on rangeland forage loss, tree cover has increased by 50 percent across the western half of the US…
The Secret of Environmental Protection
Yes, data from the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Index send a resounding message: Economic freedom brings about environmental protection. Why? Because economic freedom leads to prosperity and only prosperous countries can truly protect their environment. Are you skeptical? As the graph above shows,…
Does Climategate Live On?
Robert Bradley Jr. retells the fascinating story of Climategate—the 2009 leak of emails among well-known climate scientists that showed “bias, data manipulation, dodging freedom of information requests, and efforts to subvert the peer-review process.” On his blog MasterResource Bradley includes some of the highly disturbing email quotations. In case you’re not familiar with Climategate, here’s…
Good News: A Recycling Program to Like
Have you ever wondered what to do with an old mattress? Three states have adopted a recycling program, “Bye, Bye Mattress,” run by the Mattress Recycling Council, a national organization of mattress producers. The council operates recycling programs in Connecticut, California, and Rhode Island. “Since the program began in 2015 [in Connecticut], more than 1.2…