There’s an eerie resemblance between today’s ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing and the Porter Hypothesis, an earlier claim about how regulation can lead to profits. (Its architect, Michael Porter, Harvard business professor, is pictured here.) First, some definitions: ESG investing means investors choose companies that meet certain non-financial criteria. So, in the environmental area…
Search Results for: regulation
Some Problems with the New York Times
This post is about how preconceived ideas, in this case ideas about climate change, corrupt reporting. A skilled reporter from the New York Times, Marguerite Holloway, went to western Massachusetts to see what was wrong with the trees there. She found a number of problems but her description and analysis are riddled with assumptions about…
The Challenge of Private “Seasteading”
By Greg Rehmke. This is a guest post by Greg Rehmke, program director of Economic Thinking, an organization that fosters better understanding of economic principles. Natural coral and oyster reefs around the world are considered “rainforests of the oceans,” home to rich and diverse ecosystems. Shipwrecks, offshore oil platforms, and artificial reefs teem with species…
Record Crop Yields . . . California’s ‘Hubris on an Historic Scale’ . . .
HEADLINES. ClimateRealism: Washington Post says the Farm Belt is drying up, but crop yields are getting better nearly every year. . . . Are the costs of wind energy going down—or up? A study from “Briefings for Britain” decides. . . . Global fire acreage has been in decline for nearly 20 years, according to…
Christians Should Be Realistic When Protecting God’s Creation
It’s harvest season in much of America, and the nation’s houses of worship are filled with prayers of thanksgiving for nature’s bounty. Calls for commitments to honor God’s creation are highly appropriate. How can we best accomplish this rewarding but difficult environmental mission? A good beginning is to separate pious but unrealistic pronouncements from prudent…
American Prairie Reserve: Free Market Environmentalism or “Political Land”?
It’s a spectacularly romantic idea—returning a large swathe of western grazing land to prairie land, with bison, elk, cougars, prairie dogs, grouse, and other wildlife. That’s the goal of the American Prairie Reserve, whose owners hope to create open prairie and wildlife range extending over 3.2 million acres in northeastern Montana. “We want to restore…