Econ4 Discusses Regulation
Econ4, a group of heterodox economists who “believe that the economy should serve the people, the planet, and the future,” has released its latest video, on regulation. Yours truly has a bit part.
Read more...Category Archives: Environment
Eric Zuesse: Obama Administration Lies, Then Covers Up, to Minimize BP Liabilities for Deepwater Horizon Disaster
By Eric Zuesse, an investigative historian and the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the Federal Government has refused to investigate why it vastly underestimated the amount of oil spilled in BP’s Deepwater Horizon huge blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, and thus refused to understand why the actual liability of BP will never be able to be estimated accurately, for calculating BP’s penalties and compensation-payments.
Read more...The Political Implications of America’s Oil & Gas Boom – James Kwak Interview
By James Stafford, editor of OilPrice. Cross posted from OilPrice
In the interview James talks about:
Read more...• The political implications of America’s oil & gas boom
• How the shale boom will impact climate change
• Why China may be forced to change its political system
• An easy way to solve the debt crisis
• Why we should expect a comeback from coal in the future
• Why we must invest in renewable energy
• Why cheap energy isn’t vital to economic growth
• How Obama’s second term will alter the energy landscape
• Why we need to focus on conservation
• Why we shouldn’t take note of the doom and gloom predictions
Conservation Not Technology will be our Savior – Chris Martenson (Part 2)
In part 2 of our interview with Chris Martenson, economist and editor of the popular financial website Peak Prosperity, Chris talks about:
Read more...• How tight oil is being oversold
• An idea for solving the storage and bBattery problem
• How price, not technology, has unlocked boom reserves
• Why it’s about conservation now, not new technology
• Why we should be concerned about another financial meltdown
• Future opportunities for investors
• Why exporting natural gas is a terrible idea
• Why Governments should help renewable Energy innovation
• Why net energy returns are the MOST important thing
Don’t Fall for the Shale Boom Hype – Chris Martenson Interview
By James Stafford, editor of Oil Price of Oil Price. Cross posted from Oil Price
In part 1 of our 2 part interview Chris discusses:
Read more...• Why we shouldn’t talk about energy independence
• What the media is failing to report about the “massive” Shale discoveries
• How oil analysts are getting the economics wrong
• Why we could see $200 a barrel Oil in the Near Future
• The relationship between energy and the economy
• Why peak oil is not a defunct theory
• Why electric vehicles are the future
• Why natural gas should be a bridge to a new energy future
• Why Washington just doesn’t get it
How the Koch Brothers Manipulate Climate Change Studies
By Joao Peixe. Cross posted from OilPrice
The Koch brothers, Charles and David, are the billionaire owners of Koch Industries, and two of the most obstinate climate change deniers out there.
Read more...New Econoparody: “Oil to the World”
Readers have enjoyed past productions by Versus. Here’s their latest holiday release:
Read more...Obama Signs Bill to Exempt US Airlines from EU Aviation Carbon Tax
I managed to avoid listening to pretty much all of Obama’s election victory speech but managed to click onto a news site that had a streaming video of it, and caught his tepid reference to climate change, a passing comment on “the destructive power of a warming planet.” This wasn’t a commitment of any kind; I took this as a sign simply that the president now feels he has to give global warming lip service.
This news story, of Obama undermining an EU carbon tax, is consistent with that theory.
Read more...EPA Testing Dangerous Pollutants on Human Beings
By Jen Alic, a geopolitical analyst, co-founder of ISA Intel (www.isaintel.com) in Sarajevo and the former editor-in-chief of ISN Security Watch in Zurich. Cross posted from OilPrice
Want to know how dangerous pollutants are to your health? For $12 an hour, you can find out directly.
Read more...Homeless in New Jersey
Yves here. This article points out what others have noted: that Hurricane Sandy has given much more visibility to the dangers of climate change. It’s an environmental version of the old economists’ joke: A recession occurs when your neighbor loses his job. A depression takes place you lose your job. The media and policymakers in large measure live in a bubble centered on New York and Washington DC, and it has taken an event that hit their sheltered world hard to get them to wake up and take notice.
Read more...Harry Shearer: Preventing Another “Sandy”: The Lessons New Orleans can Teach New Jersey
By satirist Harry Shearer, who recently took two years off from comedy to direct “The Big Uneasy”, a documentary about the investigations into the 2005 New Orleans flood
Within hours of the landfall of Sandy, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was telling his homeboy anchor Brian Williams that he was going to get on the phone to the President and request the Army Corps of Engineers to come up with a plan for protecting the Jersey shore. If he hasn’t yet placed that call, he might want to give it a second think.
Read more...Ocean Power: The Ignored Alternative
Call it the joy of engineering.
Ocean power is an engineer’s dream, where seemingly all things are possible.
Read more...The Myth of Affordable Energy — Interview with Ed Dolan
In the interview Ed talks about the following:
Read more...• Why cheap energy is not vital to economic growth
• Why high oil prices aren’t necessarily a bad thing
• Why the U.S. Oil and gas boom is hurting Russia’s global influence
• Why Obama’s desire to cut oil industry tax breaks could be a great idea
• Why energy policy needs to be completely reformed
• Why Russia’s Arctic Exploration could cause the worst environmental disaster to date
• Why renewable energy investors should be very worried about the Natural gas boom
• Why the EU was flawed from the start
• Why subsidies for renewables are just plain wrong.
• Why we should give QE3 a chance
• Why abundant natural resources can bring a curse of riches
New York Times Story Bizarrely Downplays Impact of Ocean Acidification
The Grey Lady tonight, in true “newspaper of record” fashion, has an article that manages to acknowledge some of the effects of ocean acidification, and its links to global warming, while sidestepping how grim the implications are.
Read more...Michael Hoexter: Deficit Hawks (Obama, Romney, Bowles, Boehner) Plan to Shrink YOUR Economy – Part 2
Michael Hoexter is a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives.
Shrinking “Their” Economy Shrinks Yours
The word “economy” comes from the Greek “oikos” meaning “hearth” or “household”. Everybody has a household economy that looks slightly different from that of their neighbors. However, because of the nature of a monetary economy, household economies are linked quite tightly together and trends that effect one household start to have effects in other households soon or over the longer term. While within the same economy some households can prosper while others do not, generally there is a movement in tandem for some obvious reasons related to how society and the monetary system work.
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