Martin Morse Wooster died tragically in November from a hit-and-run accident. Martin was a free-market intellectual with a big portfolio of interests, many of which overlapped with mine, especially education and the environment. Martin helped get this blog started. While he didn’t write articles (except for one), every day he would read the Washington Post…
Category: Jane Shaw Stroup
Environmental Justice Means Having Your Own Solar Panel
The state of Rhode Island will subsidize the construction of solar panels on the houses of low- or moderate-income families. Writes Lesa Prevost in Energy News: “The program will offer affordable leases for solar equipment on homes owned by residents with incomes less than or equal to 80% of the area median income. That’s a…
Who’s Astro-Turfing What?
Activists for renewables are horrified that rural America isn’t eager to have wind turbines or solar panels as part of its landscape. They’re blaming fossil-fuel industry “Astro-turf” groups for stirring up rural resistance. In December, in a (paywalled) New Yorker piece, “From Climate Exhortation to Climate Execution,” Bill McKibben describes the work to be done…
On Recycling, Don Boudreaux Makes No Concessions
Writing on Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux exchanges words with an eager college student who thinks everyone should recycle as much as possible. First, says Boudreaux, he himself does recycle: “As I write to you I’m wearing clothing that I’ve worn before; I recycled my jeans and underwear in the recycling machines at my home known as…
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,…
Planners Want Control over Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland, a Privately Owned Preserve
No good deed goes unpunished. That adage might be applied to Gordon Strong’s 1954 donation of Maryland’s Sugarloaf Mountain as a preserve for public use, while remaining in private hands. Stronghold, Inc., a nonprofit organization, owns most of the mountain and, until recently, intended to keep it open for public use (as it has been…