Ed Ring

Much has been made of "smart growth principles" and "smart energy policy" in California.  But in reality, the assumptions which dominate and drive California's land use and energy policies are seriously flawed.  Failure to examine the quantitative realities that ought to inform these policies, and adjust accordingly, will condemn Californians to a future much darker than many rational alternatives. The three primary questions facing California's policymakers are how best to manage California's land, water, and energy.  In all three, stark choices are faced, which can be illuminated by comparing four types of land use:  High density new homes, low density new homes, corn ethanol farms, and solar thermal power stations.  In all four areas, elementary quantitative analysis may reveal surprising results. There are 37 million people in California.  Assume the population...

The primary environmentalist war of choice, today at least, is against the car.  Environmentalists want to drive us out of our cars, in spite of the fact that cars are green and smart, and they are getting greener and smarter all the time. The most liberating personal transportation innovation since the discovery of horseback riding must be systematically eliminated, or so one would think.  What would the streets of our cities be like if bikes had to slow to pedestrian speed?  Is this next?  In the real world, goods and people have got to move fast and independently, and just like bikes, cars are the way to do it. The GM "Flextreme" - a diesel series...

Sacramento, California, is arguably the epicenter of the green policy initiatives that are changing the world.  But living here in the center of the storm, watching the impact as these new "enlightened" policies get implemented, is not as blissful an experience as one might think. According to today's environmentalist wisdom, if you have yard that requires water to grow life, you are a eco-criminal. Everyone must now live in cluster homes. Having been an avid, utterly committed environmentalist for nearly 40 years, I think I'm entitled to a bit of skepticism while witnessing these latest, fairly intense iterations of environmentalism.  I am increasingly...

First of all, a gigaton is one billion metric tons. One metric ton (2,200 lbs.) is what a cubic meter of water weighs. One billion metric tons is what one cubic kilometer (one billion cubic meters) of water weighs, and it is called a gigaton. Next, remember atmospheric CO2 includes two oxygen atoms, and weighs 3.7x the carbon feedstock. So if there are 70 gigatons of carbon in the Amazon, for example, burning the remaining Amazonian carbon will release 2.7x that many gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere (ref. Amazon Ecology Project). So far, tropical deforestation alone has resulted in the release of about 475 gigatons of CO2 into our atmosphere. So how many gigatons of CO2 are we contending with, anyway, in our atmosphere? Referencing and extrapolating from J. Schlorrer's 1994 study, "Why Does Atmospheric CO2 Rise?", there are probably about 3,000 gigatons of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere right now. Forests are at best carbon...

There is a group in the USA (and elsewhere) known as the International Dark Sky Association who, since 1988, have been advocating not carbon reduction, but lumen reduction.  With over 11,000 members - over 1,500 in California - the International Dark Sky Association has some clout. Nonetheless, "glare bombs" are still available in bulk and can still be easily and inexpensively purchased (by anyone with an exterior wall on their dwelling) at the nearest big box retail outlet, and when deployed these always-on security lights, especially using flourescents, consume minimal energy and produce extremely maximal lumens.  In fact, in spite of their energy sipping ways, just one of these security lighting fixtures could, if placed on the surface of the moon, be visible with a 20x telescope from earth.  At least in a sufficiently dark location on earth. But dark skies are only part of the mission of the...

The clean technology revolution is upon us, but investors and entrepreneurs should exercise caution when placing their bets.  Here are some contrarian considerations that could well be vindicated in the coming years, and if they are, subsidies will dry up, the legislative and regulatory environment will shift dramatically, and entire industries that were built on today’s conventional wisdom will no longer exist. Most of the investments made in energy today, for example, rest on the assumption that energy is scarce – but in reality energy is not scarce, what is scarce is energy that conventional wisdom defines as “clean energy.”  This definition, in turn, has recently become far, far more restrictive, insofar as any energy production that causes CO2 emissions is no longer considered clean.  But there are a growing number of climatologists, such as Dr. Richard Pielke, Sr. at...

Many influential and principled, well-meaning elites have decided the science behind CO2 policies are too much for them, since even if CO2 alarmism is ultimately unfounded, anything to convince people to reduce CO2 is a good and noble lie, anyway.  Many conscientious people have decided whatever we do while trumpeting anti-CO2 motives must be good.  Debate is supposedly over on the topic of CO2 emissions.  If you don't agree with the CO2 alarmists, but feel the end justifies the means, at worst you're a noble liar.  If you don't agree, and stick to your guns, you're the moral equivalent of a holocaust denier.  Meanwhile, while we perseverate over CO2 emissions, genuine, immediate, epic environmental disasters are ongoing, visible and obvious.  In some cases, actions motivated by global warming alarm has actually worsened these disasters.  In other cases, they get scant...

In order to build homes today, small operators can't get land entitlements.  The reason for this is because cities now demand private builders pay for roads and parks in advance, and build them at the same time as the homes are built.  This is extremely costly, and hardly anyone can play this game.  And what gets built with this "smart growth" is not a natural flow of landowners everywhere electing when to sell to a homebuilder, and the market pouring development into the natural nooks and crannies.  Instead, our cities make painstakingly negotiated and litigated, massive leaps, each one involving massive compounds of densely packed homes, usually surrounded by 12 foot masonary walls.  Each of these "planned communities"can involve hundreds of millions in financing and take many decades to realize a return, adhering to ever-changing, endless regulations determined by...

Unintended consequences are always part of any new scheme, and emissions trading is no exception.  The European model ought to provide plenty of cautionary examples.  Free market advocates claim emissions trading is preferable to outright taxation, but ignore the fact that in both cases, a huge and mostly arbitrary transfer of wealth is occurring.  Emissions trading increases the prices to consumers just as much as taxes do, and if anything, result in less targeted application of the proceeds. It may be a good idea to artificially raise the price of energy.  Doing this stimulates investment in new sources of energy, thereby helping nations to achieve greater measures of energy independence.  But where will all of this capital go?  In the European model, much of the proceeds has been used to artificially create a market for biofuel, which in-turn has caused the most devastating...

Last week Bill Moyers interviewed FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, and throughout the interview, Copps decried the consolidation that is occurring in media, and insisted that preserving debate is essential if we are to preserve democracy. There are a lot of changes today - on the internet there are literally billions of new sources of media - not just extensions of every traditional media source already out there - print media, television and radio, but additional hundreds of millions of websites that are little more than personal diaries, additional millions of video clips on YouTube, and millions more that are venues for commercial endeavors. Where is the genuine media? How do you cut through the noise? It's no secret that traditional media is dying. The only place in-depth investigations and reporting ever were feasible were in newspapers. For over a century, newspapers held a special place in media...