Your electric car is using electricity produced elsewhere, often by coal-powered plants, write New York Times reporters Hiroko Tabuchi and Brad Plumer. Thus it could be producing more carbon dioxide emissions than you think. To the writers, who espouse reducing carbon emissions, this is a potential weakness of electric cars. “’Coal tends to be the critical factor,”’said…
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The Troubled Art of Restoration Ecology
Liam Heneghan is a restoration ecologist, whose professional field—only forty years old, if that—is full of uncertainties. Its goal is to reverse environmental damage and restore land to a more pristine past. He explains: “Where ecosystems have been degraded because of human activity—including an overexploitation of useful species, invasion by exotic pests, erosion of soils,…
Where Are the Environmental Critics of China?
When it comes to climate change, China talks about reducing emissions but keeps building coal plants. So why are environmental groups so soft on China? Francis Menton explains on the Manhattan Contrarian. He notes what two leading environmental groups say about China (and there are more examples): Environmental Defense Fund, “Why China is at the…
What in the World Are Net-Zero Carbon Emissions?
They are all the rage in corporate America and on Wall Street. The idea is to express your commitment to ecological goals through decisions that reduce carbon dioxide emissions in order to reduce global warming. Morgan Stanley, a leading investment bank, has just committed itself to “net-zero financed emissions by 2050,” And “net-zero carbon emissions”…
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…
Going Against the Grain
In 1973, John Baden and Richard Stroup proposed selling off the U. S. Forest Service to private owners, some nonprofit and some for-profit. In an article in the Journal of Law and Economics, they argued that commercial timber would be better managed by private companies, and non-profit organizations like the Sierra Club could protect the…