January 2009
25 posts
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Adapting to Adaptation
Helmut, citing a recent report describing the persistence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (about 1,000 years, it seems), says it’s time to get serious about adaptation to climate change: Look, emissions credit trading is fine in my view as a stopgap measure, as are carbon taxes. But neither present a real answer to climate change, as I’ve been saying over the past few years (see...
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Everything's Better with Zombies
Via John Holbo, a, uh, interesting reinterpretation of the classics: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to...
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How the Romans Handled Financial Crises
Tom Ricks tells us: The Roman equivalent of the Fed then pumped tons of money into the financial system, and also cut interest rates to zero, which is about where we are now in our own mess. […] Tiberius also raised funds by accusing Sextus Marius, the richest man in Spain, of incest — almost certainly a trumped-up charge — and then having him thrown headlong from the Tarpeian...
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What Digby Said
Concerning the total lack of support from House Republicans for the stimpak, despite President Obama bending over backwards to accommodate them: At some point, the Democrats are going to have to confront their central political problem, which is that the conservatives are not appeasable and that political and media elites have either been brainwashed by conservative propaganda or are conservatives...
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Ultimatum
David Roberts says that, if his contacts in Congress are right, it’s either a cap-and-trade bill or nothing:Calls for a carbon tax, to the extent they have any effect, will complicate and possibly derail passage of carbon legislation. It’s possible that a carbon tax (and/or cap-and-dividend) bill will be introduced. One or both might even make it to a full vote, though I doubt it....
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Song for Sunday
This still makes me choke up:
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Unemployment Blogging, Day 33
Good news, everyone, as Hubert J. Farnsworth would say: I have a job interview Monday. Time to rifle through Lifehacker’s archives on job interview tips… Meanwhile, in the “misery loves company” department, 62,000 people joined the unemployment rolls last week. And at least two states — New York and South Carolina — have unemployment insurance funds in the red....
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We May Well Be Doomed
Via Ryan Avent, not only has public support for action on global warming declined in the face of the recession, but it seems we’re even going backward on the causes of warming: Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity. Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other...
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Random Thought About Externalities
I am convinced that there is something in the behavioral economics literature that compares the relative effectiveness of resolving positive externalities through subsidies vs. resolving negative externalities through taxes. (E.g., subsidizing renewable energy vs. taxing fossil fuels.) My hypothesis runs like this: when you apply theories of loss aversion to energy consumption, people will tend to...
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Unemployment Blogging, Day 31
So after a month of being out of work, I will finally start receiving unemployment benefits, having spoken with a person from the unemployment bureau and confirming with them that I was in fact laid off, not fired (and thus ineligible). All I have to do now is continue to make at least two job contacts a week, and hopefully get back to work. Fortunately, I think I have the inside track on a sales...
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Inauguration Day
This more or less sums up my feelings about the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency: We have called by various names brothers and sisters of a single principle. If a republican cherishes free government under law, we are all republicans. If a democrat believes that the voices of all the people should count, we are all democrats. If it is conservative to defend the Constitution, we are all...
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Are We Doomed?
Dance around the mushroom cloud Originally uploaded by LeeksReading this piece makes me nervous about the prospects of comprehensive climate change legislation. Are all the green groups and Democrats as prepared to fight for its passage as the oil and coal companies and the Republicans are to quash it? Let me put it this way: Bill Clinton and the Democrats got burned when they tried to enact...
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The Energy Tax Code
Aside from the question of pricing the externalities of carbon emissions, a key question about the future of US energy policy is whether the existing tax code is well-suited for promoting a sustainable system of energy. This Oil Drum post provides a good overview of what the situation is like now. Here’s the nickel version: The tax code is not at all generous with respect to investments in...
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Yet More on Green Jobs
Another point about green jobs worth chewing on is that the question of whether they’re a good idea depends on your assumptions about economics. If you believe, in accordance with standard economics, that economic growth is an unalloyed good and that maximizing productivity (labor productivity in particular) is key to raising living standards, then a green jobs agenda, which promotes...
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More on Green Jobs
Solar Panel install Originally uploaded by richardmasonerOne argument against green jobs, at least from the economic perspective, is that one of the perceived virtues of projects like renewable energy production and energy-efficient building retrofits — that they are relatively labor-intensive, and thus would employ more people than would the oil, coal, and gas industries — is in fact...
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Wasting Time Productively
As is well known, the problem with combating global warming is that the costs of mitigation are mostly upfront, while the benefits, in terms of avoided destabilization of the Earth’s climate, are in the future. This doesn’t jibe well with human behavior, which is more attuned to taking on direct and immediate threats, such as war or terrorism or (for some people) same-sex marriage. But...
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The Problem With Bridal Movies
Amanda Marcotte nails it: We are supposed to think that women have all the power in these situations, because they do all the planning and men are mere props in the game. But really, that’s not how it goes in this narrative, not really. After all, men carry with them that all-important power, to whip out the ring and rescue a woman from the horrible non-life of the spinster and grant her...
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Revenue Recycling
Word seems to be coming down the pike that comprehensive action on climate change is going to be delayed, possibly to next year: Nancy Pelosi has gone on record saying a cap-and-trade bill is unlikely to be passed in 2009, and incoming OMB director Peter Orszag has suggested that health care is the Obama administration’s top agenda item, rather than energy and climate change, as Obama had...
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Unemployment Blogging, Day 23
I received my benefits card in the mail (a prepaid debit card courtesy of Citi — speaking of which, do check out this post by Felix Salmon on its possible demise); now I’m waiting for the actual money to be added on. I am trying to articulate my current position in the arc of my career. I suppose I would count, in terms of relevant experience, as entry-level, but entry-level employees...
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A Film For Our Times
At a time when the princes of high finance are held in such utter contempt, the makers of this film must be overjoyed at their great timing. It probably won’t do much for their box office, though.
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More Current Reading
I’m also re-reading Watchmen, in anticipation of the movie which may (or may not) come out in March. I’m struck, reading it this time, at the level of symbolism and visual punning that goes on, and how it avoids becoming mannered — an easy trap for anything that aspires to serious art, as Watchmen does. Not to mention the telling details that are casually strewn throughout the...
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Current Reading
In a bid to improve my urban policy cred, I’ve picked up How Cities Work by Alex Marshall. Thus far, it’s really good: Rather than writing a brief for urbanism, Marshall tries to explain how all types of developments — urban and suburban — come into being around certain types of economic activity, political priorities, and transportation options. The upshot seems to be that...
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Constituencies
The Windy recently published a fascinating piece on the embattled Office of Thrift Supervision, which ostensibly regulates savings and loan banks but in recent years has been more notable for failing to identify problems in such companies as Washington Mutual, IndyMac, and Countrywide as they each went down in flames. It seems that OTS, which many in Washington would like to see abolished, has...
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Of Steel-Toed Boots and Solar Panels
So there’s a tiff that went on this week between Joe Romm, on one side, and Robert Stavins and his fellow environmental economists, on the other, concerning Van Jones’ green-collar jobs movement. Stavins starts off with this comment in the latest New Yorker: “Let’s say I want to have a dinner party. It’s important that I cook dinner, and I’d also like to take a shower before the guests...
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Unemployment Blogging, Day 18
A brief update: I officially applied for unemployment benefits, and should be getting the first check next week. Actually, it’s not a check, it’s a prepaid debit card, similar to the cards used for food stamps, only there’s no limit, of course, to what you can spend it on. And it seems you can transfer the money into your own bank account. The Pew Center for Global Climate...