Today President Obama was advocating the renewal of wind energy tax credits to promote green energy. Meanwhile, last week the Obama administration placed a 31% tariff on the importation of solar panels from China. So, is he for green energy, as the wind energy tax credit would suggest, or against it, as his raising...
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Water shortages and poor water quality are looming threats in many developing countries. By contrast, water supplies and water quality have increased in much of the United States due to a specific policy innovation: water markets and market-like exchanges. The growing participation of wildlife agencies and conservationists in water markets and exchanges is especially...
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James Delingpole reports in the Telegraph of London that James Lovelock, the “greenest” of the “greens,” now admits that the doomsaying over global warming is wrong. [O]ne of the archest of the world’s arch Greenies – James Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia hypothesis and therefore, more or less, founder of the world’s most powerful...
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We are delighted to announce the publication of the Spring 2012 issue of the Independent Institute’s peer-reviewed journal, The Independent Review. This issue’s articles and book reviews deal with the following questions: What does evidence from hunter-gatherer societies suggest about whether human beings are better adapted for individualism or collectivism? Read the article. What...
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Here are a few good reasons to think about just how much more federal money ($5 billion and counting) should be poured into subsidizing electric cars: A new study from the University of Tennessee finds that electric cars cause worse pollution in China than standard gas-burning cars. The bottom line is that one has...
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The response to the January 27th article in the Wall Street Journal by sixteen leading scientists, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming,” has been nothing short of explosive both at the Journal and to my blogging on the matter, “Leading Scientists Debunk Climate Alarmism.” However, the response from the mega-funded alarmist establishment (see...
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Residents of Hawaii were dismayed to see this recent front-page headline: “Hawaii Solar Savings Spark Higher Electric Bills.” Since so many consumers have sought electrical savings from installing solar panels, the state-monopoly electric utility is losing revenue and now needs to make it up in higher rates. At least Hawaii’s perennially sunny weather will...
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For most of its history, the U.S. government maintained a policy of transferring acquired lands to private owners and to the states. This changed around the turn of the 20th century, however, as the Progressives preached the “gospel of efficiency,” a doctrine that hailed the scientific management of natural resources by enlightened public servants....
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In their recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming,” a group of sixteen world-renowned scientists decry the unscientific alarmism over “global warming,” citing numerous inconvenient facts that dispute global warming claims. Here is a video interview with signatory William Happer, Professor of Physics, Princeton University: Their message...
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A story by Matthew Wald in the New York Times on January 9th demonstrates the poverty of governmental attempts to pick “winners” in the realm of green technologies, the wasteful subsidy programs supporting that policy goal and the huge costs for the private sector of being unable to march to Washington’s tune. Among its...
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