All Posts Tagged With: "pollution"
Is the EPA Necessary?
I submit that common sense tells us to do away with the agency.
8Dec2010 | William L. Anderson | 9 comments | ContinuedCan Government Save Us from Manmade Disasters?
Please, folks, can’t we have a little more sophistication about what it takes to prevent environmental disasters? The politicians seem to be stuck on the idea that more government is the solution, and many journalists echo the theme. In discussing the BP spill and several other manmade environmental disasters last summer, Washington Post reporters David [...]
22Oct2010 | James L. Payne | 3 comments | ContinuedSafer Living with Chemistry
Back in 1651 Thomas Hobbes described life in the state of nature as “nasty, brutish, and short.” But even in civilized society during his lifetime, most people lived under what we would consider wretched conditions. At that time, you were lucky if you lived past 30; our notion of basic sanitation didn’t exist; people used [...]
25Jun2010 | Angela Logomasini | 1 comment | ContinuedNuclear Energy Should Be Subsidized?
In a March 5 Los Angeles Times op-ed, “Jump-starting Nuclear Energy,” Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore, who now co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, lauds the Obama administration for its decision to “guarantee loans for two advance-design nuclear plants in Georgia.” Nuclear energy diversifies our energy portfolio and doesn’t pollute the air the way fossil [...]
20May2010 | Art Carden and Mike Hammock | 9 comments | ContinuedDim Bulbs
“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.” —Thomas A. Edison Edison’s words may have been true in the 1800s. Today, however, we have plenty of rules, thanks to the U.S. Congress. Some are so bizarre that you have to question the judgment of those who come up with them. One rule in [...]
10Jun2009 | Michael Heberling | 30 comments | ContinuedRegulatory Roadblocks to Turning Waste to Wealth
Pierre Desrochers is a professor of geography at the University of Toronto. The small industrial town of Kalundborg, located 75 miles from Copenhagen, shouldn’t be on the radar screen of most visitors to Denmark. It has nonetheless become something of a Mecca for “sustainable development” theorists the world over. Kalundborg’s main attraction, apart from its [...]
1Sep2003 | Pierre Desrochers | 0 comments | ContinuedGovernment-Reformulated Gas: Bad in More Ways than One
The amended Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1990 called for cleaner automobile-engine combustion and a reduction in tailpipe emissions. To meet these goals, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) directed the petroleum industry to modify the composition of gasoline to comply with the “Oxygenated” and “Reformulated” Gasoline (RFG) Programs. While only those parts of the country [...]
1Sep2003 | Michael Heberling | 1 comment | ContinuedSaving the Environment for a Profit, Victorian-Style
Pierre Desrochers is research director at the Montreal Economic Institute (www.iedm.org). In the mind of the 21st-century environmentalist, Victorian cities and towns evoke images of black coal smoke and unsanitary conditions. For most people of the time though, they were one of humanity’s supreme achievements. Not as clean as the countryside, no doubt, but thriving [...]
1May2003 | Pierre Desrochers | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Impossibility of Harming the Environment
“The ‘polluter pays principle’ states that whoever is responsible for damage to the environment should bear the costs associated with it.” —United Nations Environmental Programme1 The “polluter pays principle” appeals to our sense of justice. People should be held responsible for their actions, and polluters who cause damage to others should “pay” for that damage. [...]
1May2002 | Roy Cordato | 0 comments | ContinuedPrisoners’ Dilemmas and Cooperation
Economics is largely about how people cooperate so each can best pursue his or her objectives, whatever they may be. Decentralized market-based economies are wealthier than those based on central direction because markets facilitate the communication of the information and motivation necessary for people to cooperate, while central direction always censors that communication. Even market-based [...]
1Feb2002 | Dwight R. Lee | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Sustainable–and Young–Hydrocarbon Energy Age
As the Bush administration confronts the economy’s growing need for affordable and reliable energy, the critics of the hydrocarbon-based energy economy are back to the drawing board. The “soft” energy path of subsidies and mandates for conservation and nonhydro renewable energy—hatched during the 1970s energy crisis and popularized during the eight years of Clinton/Gore—was not [...]
1Nov2001 | Robert L. Bradley Jr. | 3 comments | ContinuedMaximum Cooperation Means Minimum Cost
There are two big advantages to a pollution-control policy that relies on transferable pollution permits. First, firms can reduce pollution any way they choose, which will be the cheapest way possible. Second, firms will coordinate their reduction with one another so that the pollution target is achieved as efficiently as possible.
1Nov2001 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedGetting the Most Out of Pollution
The Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to reduce pollution with command and control suffers from the same problem as attempting to direct the economy with socialism—central authorities dictate outcomes without knowing what the outcomes should be or how they are best achieved.
1Oct2001 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Perverse Popularity of Command and Control
Most government attempts to protect the environment involve imposing detailed regulations on how, and how much, pollution must be reduced. This command-and-control approach does reduce pollution, but as I explained last month, it does so at high cost.
1Sep2001 | Dwight R. Lee | 3 comments | ContinuedSpencer’s Law: Another Reason Not to Worry
One of the constant themes of today’s media is crisis and panic. Everywhere we look we are told there is some dreadful social problem, a threat to all that is good and true. Moreover, it is getting worse and will bring disaster upon all of us—unless “we do something.” (The authors of these jeremiads always [...]
1Aug2001 | Stephen Davies | 0 comments | ContinuedThe High Cost of Command and Control
We may not all agree on how much pollution to reduce, but we certainly should agree to reduce it as cheaply as possible. Since cleaning up at least cost is exactly the same as maximizing the cleanup for any given cost, cost minimization should appeal even to those who dislike thinking about the cost of protecting the environment.
1Aug2001 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedReducing the Cost of Reducing Pollution
As we discussed last month, the efficient amount of pollution is not likely to please many. The problem is that everyone in an area has to consume the same amount of environmental quality while the value of that quality and the price paid for it vary from person to person. Some will want less than [...]
1Jul2001 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | Continued-
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