This is from CNN Host Wolf Blitzer:
We’re seeing firsthand the effects of climate change as a powerful Atlantic hurricane is sitting right now off the coast of Florida.
This is from Roy Spencer:
This is from CNN Host Wolf Blitzer:
We’re seeing firsthand the effects of climate change as a powerful Atlantic hurricane is sitting right now off the coast of Florida.
This is from Roy Spencer:
In August 2016 Reuters reported on a study by the nonprofit Climate Policy Initiative that linked the absence of land titles in the Amazon to conflict and environmental degradation. “Without clear titles proving land ownership, farmers have less incentive to make new investments, improve productivity or protect the environment, said the CPI, a San Francisco-based group with operations in Rio de Janeiro,” Reuters wrote.
Long gone are the days when (as in the award-winning movie The Graduate) a future father-in-law would tell his future son-in-law there is a great future in plastics.
Over the past decade several cities and states have considered or imposed bans on so-called “single use” plastic bags. Recently, some jurisdictions have considered or imposed restrictions on Styrofoam carry-out containers, drinking straws, and plastic utensils.
The assault on convenient plastic started in California nearly a decade ago and has spread across the nation. Some cities and states, with legislators who respect freedom of choice, have resisted the siren call to ban plastic. Indeed, some states have even gone so far as to bar cities from banning or otherwise restricting, taxing, or penalizing the use of plastic bags.
Roy Spencer is a meteorologist, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He recently discussed misinformation in the media.
On Amazon fires:
The rainforest itself does not burn in response to global warming, and in fact warming in the tropics has been so slow that it is unlikely that any tropical resident would perceive it in their lifetime. This is not a climate change issue; it’s a farming and land use issue.
On Greenland melting . . .
I divide environmental topics into two sometimes overlapping groups, “romance” and “sludge.” The romance sector includes parks, forests, wildlands, wilderness, wildlife, and scenic vistas. These treasures grace calendars and coffee table books. Most educated and comfortable adults, even committed urbanites, are attracted to and want to protect this sector.
The second division is sludge. This term refers to nasty stuff that is often the necessary byproduct of legitimate productive activities such as food processing, mining, and manufacturing. These are spillovers from legitimate and useful activities.Economists call this category negative externalities. They ask: How might we efficiently reduce them—or even better, convert them into useful products?
That’s exactly what environmental entrepreneurs did when they converted the wood waste and scrap from lumber mills into valuable wood panels. Those panels replaced plywood—which had replaced boards formerly cut from old growth trees. Lesson here? In a market process economy, superior substitutes naturally evolve.
We can’t live without some sludge; it’s inherent in living and using products from the earth. While recognizing this, I choose to work in the romance arena. Had I elected to focus on sludge, I’d live in Boston and study its harbor. Instead, I live on a ranch between Bozeman and Yellowstone Park and study my surrounding habitat. Thus, I work in the tradition of America’s first conservationists.
America’s old-line conservation organizations were primarily concerned with the romance sector of their environment, largely with protecting wildlife.
Economists favor a carbon tax as the most efficient way to forestall global warming because they assume that the goal should be to reduce the amount of carbon. But David Henderson suggests that assumption may be wrong.