Comments by patrickfreeland / LJWorld.com

patrickfreeland (Patrick Freeland)

Last login: Friday, December 7, 2012

Comment history

Letter: GOP concern

The constitution was not based on the bible. It was modeled after the Haudenosaunee confederacy. This was acknowledged by Congress in 1988.

November 25, 2012 at 9:56 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Drought worsens after weeks of improvement

Drought Monitor is an excellent tool. The whole website has access to a lot of useful information.

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DM_stat...

The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration monitors several aspects of the environment, including soil moisture. Soil moisture is important as a measure of an area's potential resiliency during drought conditions.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products...

NOAA also hosts a drought outlook, which can aide in developing a risk management strategy concerning potential water shortages as a result of drought.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products...

November 22, 2012 at noon ( permalink | suggest removal )

Are We Ignoring Climate Change or The Ill Conceived and Inequitable Proposed Solutions

It bothers me a little when I continuously hear about "market based" solutions. However, in the case of emissions into an atmosphere, the impacts of pollution become non-excludable, and to some degree, non-rival. Any economist will tell you that non-rivalry and non-excludability is an indication of a market failure.

A tax on emissions per tonne is the most effective method to reduce emissions based on actual demand. If people wish to use energy, then they will pay an indirect-tax in the form of higher utility costs, while total welfare loss due to a tax will increase the marginal social benefit by allowing the externalities of pollution (NOx Aerosols, GHGs, Heavy Metals, etc.) to be factored into the actual price.

By the way... at the end of the day, should a carbon-tax make it through the appropriate legislative bodies, the price per tonne of emissions is usually around $7-11. That's not thru the nose. That's barely anything. When it comes to "policy" it's rarely ever scientists who put forward propositions, the role of science is to ask questions and weed out the bulls**t. Economists don't even propose policy, they simply analyze policy to identify the most likely scenarios of welfare loss/gain as a result of a particular policy.

You do point out something incredibly pertinent in your comment. There is no energy source on this planet as efficient as a hydrocarbon. Zero. It's interesting to track the use of energy, from the truly ecological perspective of interspecific competition, where the "species" in the sense are in fact corpora of humans. In almost every example of natural resource management, some simple patterns are followed... perhaps a true scientist would not propose any solution in any situation, rather instead simply stand back and watch.

Enjoy your life while you can...

November 19, 2012 at 4 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )