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About 99% of Victoria’s wet eucalytus old growth forest has been destroyed by logging and forest fire in what amounts to an ecological catastrophe. By-in-large the 450 year old forests have been irreversibly replaced by scrubby wattles. It is not green fanaticism to suggest that harvesting of such forests should now cease entirely with [...] These are the comments I made at a Productivity Commission Roundtable on a paper by Don Henry that was concerned with environmental population interactions. More generally I was concerned with synthesising a variety of approaches to this issue – from extreme libertarian ‘gains-from-trade’ arguments favouring a large population to extreme Malthusian arguments that supporters of [...] When I worked on transport sector externality issues recently I became aware of the issue of the impact of air pollution from vehicles on human health. Concern with this issue has subsided a lot over recent years because of improved emissions performance by vehicles. Most attention gets focused on traffic congestion issues and road accident [...] From Nicholas Gruen at Troppo I became aware of the Yale Environmental Performance Index. The 2010 EPI ranks 163 countries on 25 performance indicators tracked across 10 policy categories covering both environmental public health (50%) and ecosystem vitality (50%). These indicators provide a gauge at a national level of how close countries are to “established [...] I’ve spilt a lot of printers ink on this topic over the years. Here is a draft of some notes I prepared for a Productivity Commission meeting next week. Comments welcome. [...] China is set to levy a range of charges on various types of pollutants over the next 5 years. It is expected to be announced soon in the next 5-year plan – by far the greenest five-year plan in China’s modern history once renewable resource investments are included. The environmental tax – which will levy fees [...] It costs nothing to send an email beyond the cost of composing it – the latter is low when a message is simply a copy of something received or simply something forwarded to everyone on a group email list. However receiving hundreds of emails each day on topics that have no relevance to those receiving them [...] I had mild problems breathing last night here in north-west Beijing – I am a once-a-year asthmatic. This morning I sought to check out air pollution conditions in Beijing. A website from the US embassy describes conditions today (Sunday) as hazardous to the entire population although it is difficult to interpret this information. More information that suggests [...] I enjoyed reading Barbara Finamore’s piece on transparency in environmental regulation in China which I posted earlier. This is a partial and somewhat shorter re-post. The use of transparency as an environmental policy tool in China has particular interest for the US given the stumbling block of verifiability on Chinese carbon emissions reductions at [...] One of the plausible hypotheses I have seen raised is that China’s internal environmental problems (air, water) are improving but it is the regional and global problems that are continuing to worsen. This article in The Economist suggests that internal problems are not improving – they are worsening. The only possible ray of light is [...] I posted on the Gulf oil spill a while back and a discussant argued I was being alarmist. The NYT thinks he is right. It is bad but there seem to be worse environmental problems. 74% of the oil released was captured which reduces the scale of the problem and ”much of the rest is so diluted that [...] Green groups often have naive political philosophies that they couple with sound environmental policy strengths. The Greens are generally preferencing dumb-dumb Labor in the forthcoming House of Representatives election in exchange for Labor preferences in the Senate. Its a good deal for the Greens since the Senate preferences matter to them and most Green preferences [...] My friend Liam - who is interested in ‘sports economics’ – sent me this paper which is worth a look. Golf courses sometimes have a bad environmental reputation – for using fertilisers that contaminate water supplies, for destroying wildlife and for simply using too much water. This need not be the case. In urban areas, particularly, [...] Craig Emerson capably discusses the collapse of the comprehensive RSPT and the adoption instead of a much narrower resource rental tax (an MMRT) on coal, oil and iron ore. Readers of this blog will know (see last post) that I have changed my view on the RSPT. It was a (possibly justifiable) grab for resources [...]
It is interesting to look at BP’s share price. Its above where it was last July though it has fallen markedly (by one-third) since the oil spill began in April in the Gulf of Mexico. Yesterday $11b was wiped off the value of the company as further efforts to stop the leak failed. [...] India and China the world’s emerging economic giants will determine the world’s environmental future – there is also the threat of resource-driven conflicts between the two. This Science Magazine report sets out the issues. The report has to be purchased - I’ll summarise the main issues. [...] I provided these remarks at the 54th Annual Conference of AARES (Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society) that I am now attending in Adelaide. It is in the main a simple argument for using adaptive management techniques for managing highly uncertain and complex environmental systems. Very provisional. Revised, comments welcome. [...] Following the Obama reforms, Australian states and commonwealth governments are today considering introducing compulsory fuel standards on Australian cars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. [...] The bypass around Frankston will be toll free and will cost taxpayers $750 million. It will go ahead as a public-private partnership even if the Commonwealth Government gives not a cent towards its funding. To Premier John Brumby it is another instance of Kevin Rudd’s ‘nation-building’. Quote: ‘..quite frankly, the economy and [...] In many Australian cities an attempt has been made to regulate levels of parking by controlling levels of on- and off-street parking. The dominant trend has been to heavily restrict on-street parking but to keep that which is available priced at relatively low levels. The resulting [...] |
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