Category Environment
LED holiday lights and the rebound effect
The holiday light market is now dominated by energy-efficient LEDs. According to BC Hydro: The big difference is that they use up to 90 per cent less energy than incandescent lights, which means your holiday lighting charges could be as much as 90 per cent less than if you used incandescent lights only. The charges could be […]
Fiscal Policy, the Environment, and How Not to Solve Policy Problems
Canada and by extension the Canadian government faces a number of challenges. There are two in particular I find fascinating:
A new Canadian economics blog!
Andrew Leach is an environmental economist at the University of Alberta, and he has started a blog: Rescuing the frog. I have just subscribed to his feed, and you should, too.
Over-selling soap
The news item dominated the New York Time's "Most Popular" list for weeks: For your dishwasher's sake – go easy on the detergent. According to the authoritative appliance repairman cited by the Times, “Most people use 10 to 15 times the amount of soap they need, and they’re pouring money down the drain." Wait a […]
The NDP’s misdiagnosis
A couple of weeks ago, the NDP suggested removing the GST from heating bills, and I bemoaned the idea as just another example of a policy designed to fit a communications strategy instead of the other way around. I was hoping that the proposal would do the decent thing and go away quietly, but the […]
Philanthropy and the public good
I'm just back from visiting the Getty Villa and I don't know what to make of it. On the one hand, this is a model of what can be achieved through private philanthropy. J. Paul Getty built the villa to house his collection of Greek and Roman antiquities. The building, grounds, and setting are gorgeous, […]
Should Greenpeace just give up?
The Onion has just run a piece imagining the thoughts of suicidal blue whales: Claiming that their miserable lives had become too depressing to endure, the world's remaining blue whales surfaced Monday and desperately pleaded with environmentalists to immediately cease all conservation efforts so the species could "just be done with it and finally go […]
Incomprehensibly huge disasters
There is a tribe in the Amazon whose members can only count to five. Any amount greater than five is simply "many." We're surrounded by numbers in the millions (executive salaries), billions (Canadian government debt), and trillions (US government debt). But how much better are we than Amazon tribespeople in understanding what these amounts mean?
Energy efficiency, climate change policy and prices
Jeff Rubin makes an important point: The fact that the high-efficiency furnace generates more heat for a given amount of fuel burnt doesn’t necessarily mean I will end up with any fuel savings. As the cost of my heating falls, might it just allow me to set my thermostat higher? If so, my energy savings […]
My Christmas wish: a not-completely-stupid debate on climate change policy
Here are the ingredients: A recognition that climate change is a real problem that has to be addressed. A recognition that the costs of climate change policy cannot be shuffled off to hate-objects such as oil companies and Albertans. An honest discussion of what the costs of an effective climate change policy are. Is that […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments