Author Archives: rdmyers75@hotmail.com

April 2016 in Review

3 most frightening stories

  • The U.S. government’s dominant ideology of free trade and globalization may have roots in U.S. government propaganda designed to provide hidden subsidies to Japan and Korea, our Cold War allies in Asia. And resulting financial deregulation in the 1990s may have been the beginning of the end for the U.S. empire.
  • A new study says that ice melting in Antarctica could double sea level rise projections in the long term. Meanwhile, in the short term, the drought in Southeast and South Asia is getting more and more severe.
  • Robert Paxton says Trump is pretty much a fascist. Although conditions are different and he doesn’t believe everything the fascists believed. Umberto Eco once said that fascists don’t believe anything, they will say anything and then what they do once in office has nothing to do with what they said.

3 most hopeful stories

  • Brookings has a new report on encouraging innovation in the water sector. A lot of it is just about charging more, and it should be fairly obvious why that is politically controversial even if it is the right thing economically. But the report did have an explanation of decoupling (p. 28) which I found helpful. Decoupling is an answer to the puzzle of how a utility can support conservation without losing its revenue base.
  • The U.S. Department of Energy says the technical potential of solar panels is to supply about 39% of all energy use. And electric cars may be about to come roaring back in a big way.
  • Better management of agricultural soil might be able to play a big role in carbon sequestration.

3 most interesting stories

ecosystem disservices

This paper proposes the idea of “ecosystem disservices” to address criticisms scientists have made of the ecosystem services concept.

Limitations of the Ecosystem Services versus Disservices Dichotomy

Ongoing debate over the ecosystem services (ES) concept highlights a range of contrasting views and misconceptions. Schröter et al. (2014) summarise seven recurring arguments against the ES concept, which broadly relate to ethical concerns, translation across the science—policy interface, and how the concept’s normative aims and optimistic assumptions affect ES as a scientific approach. In particular, recent criticism has focused on how the concept is unable to address ecological complexity due to the limitations of the economic stock–flow model that ES is based on (Norgaard 2010). Acknowledging ecosystem disservices (EDS) (i.e. outcomes of ecosystem functions that negatively affect human communities) has been suggested as a way to account for this ecological complexity (McCauley 2006; Lyytimäki 2015). The impact of EDS on communities (i.e. the ‘cost’ of the action) can be measured financially, or through changes in individual or social well-being. McCauley (2006) and Lyytimäki (2015) list EDS examples like pest damage to crops, or trees removing water from watersheds.

Integration of ecological-biological thresholds in conservation decision making

Here’s another attempt to link ecological and economic systems:

Integration of ecological-biological thresholds in conservation decision making

In the Anthropocene, coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) dominate and only a few natural systems remain without drastic human influence. Conservation criteria, such as many of those proposed by conservation biologists and ecologists with reference to areas of minimal human impact, are not relevant to much of the biosphere. On the other hand, conservation criteria delineated within economics are problematic with respect to their ability to arrive at operational indicators of well-being that can be applied in practice over multi-generational time spans. CHANS are subject to the process of economic development which, under current management structures, tends to afflict natural systems and transgress planetary boundaries. Hence, designing and applying conservation criteria applicable in real world systems where human and natural systems need to interact and sustainably coexist is essential. By both recognizing the criticality of satisfying basic needs as well as the great uncertainty over the needs and preferences of future generations, the current paper seeks to incorporate strict conservation criteria into economic evaluation. Specifically, these criteria require the conservation of environmental conditions such that the opportunity for intergenerational welfare optimization is maintained. In this direction, we propose the integration of ecological-biological thresholds into decision-making and use as an example the planetary boundaries approach. As such, both conservation biologists and economists must be involved in defining operational ecological-biological thresholds which can be incorporated into economic thinking and reflect the objectives of conservation, sustainability and intergenerational welfare optimization. As a result, we delineate the axioms of an operational framework of sustainability and hence set the basis for an interdisciplinary research agenda.

electric trucks

Now that it looks like electric cars may burst onto the scene in a big way, Planetizen says maybe trucks will be next.

Trucks are kind of a pet peeve of mine. They’re useful obviously, but they degrade the urban environment a lot through noise, air pollution, safety hazards, and just being in the way. Electric trucks would only solve a couple of these issues, but that would be welcome in my opinion. We just don’t need the big trucks downtown – they could drop goods off at warehouses on the outskirts and let smaller, safer, quieter trucks bring them in. Garbage trucks are particularly irritating – I like the idea of vacuum tubes to collect both sewage and garbage, although people often laugh at me for this idea (which already exists).

more on soil and carbon sequestration

Here’s another article on soil management and carbon sequestration. Maybe the Rodale Institute is not completely unbiased, but there are serious scientific voices starting to say similar things.

Simply put, recent data from farming systems and pasture trials around the globe show that we could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive organic management practices, which we term “regenerative organic agriculture.” These practices work to maximize carbon fixation while minimizing the loss of that carbon once returned to the soil, reversing the greenhouse effect.

more on money, economic growth, and sustainability

Here’s a new study looking at economic growth, interest rates, the money supply, and ecological footprint.

Ecological monetary economics: A post-Keynesian critique

The monetary analysis of some ecological economists currently appears to be mostly articulated around the following core: a stationary economy (and a fortiori a degrowth economy) is incompatible with a system in which money is created as interest-bearing debt. To question the relevance of the debt-money/positive interest rate/output growth nexus, this paper adopts a critical stance towards the currently emerging ecological monetary economics from the standpoint of another strand of heterodox economics – the post-Keynesian approach. In its current state, ecological monetary economics is at odds with post-Keynesian economics in its analysis of the money–growth relationship. This will be shown using the theory of endogenous money and a simple Cambridgian–Kaleckian model where debt-money and a positive interest rate are compatible with a full stationary economy.

California street trees

Here’s a new article on street trees. I am slightly puzzled over how the number of trees could increase while density per mile decreased. They appear to be taking a snapshot of the actual number of trees rather than just counting trees planted. They also appear to be counting the number of trees rather than trying to measure canopy area. So the answer must be that more streets were built and planted at a lower density than the old ones. This just adds to the overwhelming evidence that trees are incredibly valuable to society, and yet the entities responsible for investing and maintaining them are chronically underfunded, and those always seem to be some of the first funds to go when cash is tight. It’s a shame. Well, I did my part by planting two little trees last weekend.

Structure, Function and Value of Street Trees in California, USA

This study compiled recent inventory data from 929,823 street trees in 50 cities to determine trends in tree number and density, identify priority investments and create baseline data against which the efficacy of future practices can be evaluated. The number of street trees increased from 5.9 million in 1988 to 9.1 million in 2014, about one for every four residents. Street tree density declined from 65.6 to 46.6 trees per km, nearly a 30% drop. City streets are at 36.3% of full stocking. State-wide, only London planetree (Platanus x hispanica) comprises over 10% of the total, suggesting good state-wide species diversity. However, at the city scale, 39 communities were overly reliant on a single species. The state’s street trees remove 567,748 t CO2 (92,253 t se) annually, equivalent to taking 120,000 cars off the road. Their asset value is $2.49 billion ($75.1 million se). The annual value (USD) of all ecosystem services is $1.0 billion ($58.3 million se), or $110.63 per tree ($29.17 per capita). Given an average annual per tree management cost of $19.00, $5.82 in benefit is returned for every $1 spent. Management implications could include establishing an aggressive program to plant the 16 million vacant sites and replace removed trees, while restricting planting of overabundant species. Given the tree population’s youth there is likely need to invest in pruning young trees for structure and form, which can reduce subsequent costs for treating defects in mature trees.

more on Tesla and buttock thrusting

Mr. Money Mustache has taken a ride in a Tesla. He says a number of things that were news to me. First, he says the car in question, the $75,000 Tesla S, was the best-selling luxury car in the United States in 2015, claiming over 25% of market share. It’s electric, powered by a rechargeable battery. You can drive about 3 hours and then have to stop to charge for 30 minutes. Tesla has built a network of thousands of free, solar-powered chargers “in the U.S. Europe, China, and elsewhere”. And this car is self-driving right now on the highway, although a person has to take control in the city. All these were things I expected to see commercially widespread in maybe 5-10 years, with skeptics saying 20+ years, but I had no idea they were widespread and commercially available (okay, to be honest, available to the rich) right now. Prices will come down.

He goes on to talk about how self-driving, solar-powered cars could change cities:

Although only multimillionaires should even consider buying a car this expensive, there’s nothing inherently expensive about electric car technology in general. Almost half of the cost of this car is in the battery, and the price of that technology has been dropping like a stone – down by over 80% in just the last 10 years. Tesla just announced their next car, the Model 3, which is almost as good by any reasonable standard and will sell for $35,000. General Motors has a competing model called the Bolt that will be ready much sooner, and all the other car companies are scrambling to catch up…

But the real way to win the car game is not to play it. The best life is spent not sitting on your buttocks within the confines of a car, but using the fine muscles within that curvaceous piece of engineering to thrust your legs downward as you provide your own propulsion. And that’s why I’m excited about what Tesla is doing.

They started deliberately at the top of the market by making prestigious and fun toys for rich people, because we’ll buy anything. But in the long run, the cars are destined to become ever-cheaper, and to be bought by the million by fleet companies like Uber. With cheap autonomous driving at our fingertips, you can summon a car for the time you need it, and then it can promptly go off and serve somebody else. Thus, won’t need to consume our cities with large parking lots, and we won’t need huge garages at home. It might even replace the expensive hassle of local-scale public transportation that we’ve struggled with for so long.

I for one am looking forward to hearing friends and neighbors fret less about parking, get out there and thrust those buttocks!