Another amazing visual

This view of the population of the world by Alasdair Rae (@undertheraedar) is a view I really didn't know well. The US has 300 million people- about the same as Indonesia, but spread out over a much larger area. I had no idea about how dense East Africa was, or even Central America/ Colombia. This is a good reminder that half of of the world population lives in a relatively small part of the world, namely from west of India though China and out to Japan in the northeast and through Indonesia in the south. 

Wind vs. Coal

This fun tongue-in-cheek article highlights the many "contributions" of coal. While the point is well made (and appreciated) I wonder if the experts are laughing- we need to worry not only about total capacity but also about peak hours, plant footprints, etc. Not sure we can just wave our hands and hope offshore wind solves everything!

Farmland values

 An interesting visual from @ArielOrtizBobea. What factors can you think of that contributed to this? There are so many! One commenter points to the market for second homes within driving distance of urban areas. Another points to the developing market for oranges in southern California. My question is about rising subsidies over time that fueled the growth in land values in Iowa and other places in the Midwest. So many factors: a great visual!

https://twitter.com/ArielOrtizBobea/status/1329854309111123969

Maryland one of three states participating in Wind Energy consortium

 Good news for offshore wind energy in Maryland! Maryland is joining with Virginia and North Carolina to work together toward increasing the availability of offshore wind. Maryland has much less ocean coast, but a) the project in MD may be further along, and b) there is some hope that turbines can be manufactured in Maryland, though that may be just a rumor. While any industry can pollute, hopefully having it in a place like Maryland with environmental safeguards in place will ensure that production limits the impacts as much as possible. 

Could this be an opening part of the Green New Deal or something like it? Biden's not a fan- and he may not win regardless- but hopefully folks around the country are interested in finally doing some infrastructure development. We will see!

Total costs vs. externality costs

 They come right out and say it just like it's regular English! :) From vox.com

2. Plastic produces external costs that are almost equal to its total market value

The plastics industry imposes all kinds of costs on society that it doesn’t have to pay (“externalities”): It emits carbon dioxide, it generates air pollution, it must be collected and sorted, and a great deal of it ends up in the ocean.

Adding up all those costs, drawing on the latest research, the report comes up with with a total externalities cost of between $800 and $1,400 per tonne, with “at least $1,000” used as a reasonable rule of thumb.

...

All told, then, a tonne of plastic imposes about $1,000 in unpaid external costs, which is about $1 per kilogram, or $350 billion a year. “The average cost of a tonne of plastic is $1,000 - $1,500,” the report says, “so the subsidy from the rest of society to the plastics industry is only a little less than the total sales value of the industry.”

Those “unpaid” external costs are being paid today, of course — they don’t vanish. It’s just that they are overwhelmingly being paid by poor people and people living in poor countries, the ones living next to toxic incinerators, gathering plastic waste, and living with the most concentrated air and water pollution.

Fracking and radioactivity

While we have known for awhile that infants near frack sites are worse off, we have only recently learned that one reason for that might be radioactivity. It turns out that pulling gas and oil out of the ground seems to bring up some bad with the good, 

Fracking & climate change

Last night's vice presidential debate highlighted opposing views of climate change: one wants to cast doubt on whether it's influenced by humans and another... wants to avoid banning fracking.

Is that all we've got? There are some good arguments for continuing fracking- basically that it's better than coal- but those arguments are losing ground as more methane emissions come to be associated with fracking. 

This 2019 article, republished after today's debate, reflects this ambiguity. If fracking can be done well, limiting methane emissions, then it's a huge resource that shouldn't be overlooked, particularly in places that are near former coal mining areas. On the other hand if all of the emissions "saved" are in fact going up into the atmosphere, well, maybe we should use more wind or nuclear. 

Guess who does urban agriculture?

Hint: it's not poor people! Urban agriculture requires a lot of time and energy for a relatively small product. Not saying it's a bad idea, just that it's important to be realistic about where our food can and should come from. Urban agriculture just isn't an option for most.

Recycling plastics is basically a lie

 Make plastic is very cheap and easy, and consumers love it. Unfortunately it is very costly to sort plastics and the recycling process degrades the material, so at best it can survive reprocessing only once or twice. Much of the "recycling" that you see in your community ends up in a landfill.

But the beat goes on: it's cheaper than ever to produce and plastics are more convenient than ever. Can we break our addiction? I'm not counting on that happening soon!

NPR story

Pears from Argentina packed in Thailand and consumed in the US

This post by Prof. Matthew Hayek, part of a mini tweet-storm of 6=7, reminds us that while moving fruit around the globe sounds pretty crazy, in fact it's not that bad. Producing pears domestically is expensive in inputs and the climate in Argentina is perfect for them, so it makes sense to package (particularly the ugly, blemished ones) and ship them off in lightweight containers. Growing pears in the US probably uses a lot of agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides which makes the ecological footprint much larger than producing pears in Argentina.

Why that would happen in Thailand as opposed to Honduras, where cheap labor is also abundant, is probably because it's safer: Honduras is a big shipper for a product with a significantly higher markup. So given global political realities it makes sense!

Why can't we all just go veg?

 Based on this blog post from big picture nutritionist Lawrence Haddad, "'Eat less meat' is seen as a way of improving the health of the planet and its people. However, eating less meat would harm the health of some individuals in low-income contexts, especially children under five and low-income populations...." The bottom line is that needs of consumers and producers both are different in richer countries than they are in poorer.

Winning the price war against animal meat

These few sentences, from Vox, say a lot: "The chicken industry has managed to cut all their corners, they don’t pay their environmental bills, they don’t pay for a lot of the public health hazards they cause. They have managed to produce a product that is just artificially cheap and hard to compete with....More important [than direct subsidies] are invisible forms of subsidization like not enforcing worker’s rights, exempting factory farms from animal cruelty laws, not requiring companies to engage in environmental cleanup, and not restricting practices — like antibiotic overuse — that impose costs on the whole world."

The upshot? Hopefully the meat alternative companies can achieve returns to scale and start getting their own products to be price competitive to these artifically low prices!

CAFOs under attack

Ok, sure, it's only by a couple of liberals, but maybe this movement has legs? A bill sponsored by Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren seeks to increase competition among meat packers, a change that would potentially increase farmers' sale prices, putting them on better financial footing. Also removing clout from the mega-producers and mega-processors might rein in their miserable environmental practices. It's hopeful!

Cheap oil!

A few days ago, before the stock market collapsed (!) I noted that due to the ongoing clash between the world's two biggest suppliers of crude oil (OPEC and Russia) the price of oil was dropping quite a bit, lower than it had for about 4 years. Cheap oil and gas would have been a boost for consumers (and a loss for those who love the environment)... but guess what? Now everyone is staying home. Airlines are among the biggest consumers of oil, but no one's traveling; manufacturing too is tanking. So not only were prices low from the price wars, but STILL nobody wants oil, even at those prices. (Except Trump, who is taking the opportunity to refill the strategic reserve- can't really argue with that move.) Anyway, today the price dropped again to about $23/ barrel, a price not seen since 2002.

This is a huge, positive development for the environment and particularly a big step against climate change. If only it wasn't coming at such a horrible, horrible human cost....

To hear more about it, including the view from a genuine expert, check out this 30-minute (ish) podcast ... and even the full transcript is included at the same link! Excuse me while I go read it....

Enter... CORONAVIRUS!

The good news: as the economy grinds to a halt, pollution also slows.... https://twitterhttps://twitter.com/novaaa/status/1238879131456208903.com/novaaa/status/1238879131456208903?s=20

https://twitter.com/novaaa/status/1238879131456208903?s=20

https://twitter.com/novaaa/status/1238879131456208903

Some bad news (though not nearly as bad as the real bad news) is price gouging, which in general economists support. Gotta say, though, it's a bad look!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html

The idea is that higher prices will incentivize suppliers to provide more of the good when a particular need crops up. For example here in Maryland, a pharmacist is able to synthesize hand sanitizer, which normally it wouldn't be worth her time to do, but in cases like this she can put extra effort into the task.

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/fox-5-found-toilet-paper-in-silver-spring
https://twitter.com/novaaa/status/1238879131456208903?s=20

Russia vs OPEC

Could it be... a price war? https://twitter.com/gbrew24/status/1236451791610490880

A similar take from US News & World Report

Pretty much timed perfectly from a class perspective- we'll see if we get the cheap gas that this thread predicts!

Quickie on methane

A new study reports that the impact of methane on climate change is even bigger than was thought. That means that fracking is worse than we thought. :(

Environmental footprint of variety of foods

This is the article I've been waiting for forever! So excited to put it in front of my students this semester.

https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

One commenter on Twitter asks what % of any carbon footprint is attributable to food. Turns out that is about 26%!

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

Nuclear saves lives... compared to coal

Coal is dirty in many ways, from staining the hands of miners to contributions to climate change, but this striking new paper shows that by creating air pollution (presumably primarily particulate matter) coal kills: thousands a year. Here is a one-tweet summary:

For the full paper, see the link.

Update 1/27: Prof. Auffhammer adds some personal recollections.

Update 3/21:  NY Times article on the effects of a coal plant closing. It's a sympathetic view of how the closure will affect the lives of locals.