Energy/Environment – Page 55 – artdiamondblog.com

Ignorance of Economics Makes U.S. Agency Complicit in Elephant Deaths

“Crushed ivory falls out of the crusher as the U.S. crushed its six-ton stock of confiscated ivory at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge . . . .” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

The higher the price of ivory, the greater the incentive for ivory poachers to kill elephants. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could have put their cache of ivory on the market, thereby increasing the supply, and reducing the price. If they had done so, they would have reduced the incentive of the poachers to poach. (This is basic price theory that I teach in each of my micro-economic principles classes.) Instead they crushed the ivory and thereby doomed some elephants to death, who otherwise could have been saved.

(p. A3) COMMERCE CITY, Colo.–The U.S. government spent the past 25 years amassing contraband ivory in a warehouse here, with pieces ranging from tiny statuettes to full elephant tusks tattooed by intricate carvings. Ultimately, the pile grew to six tons–equivalent to ivory from at least 2,000 elephants.

On Thursday, the stash collected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was pulverized by an industrial rock crusher as government officials, conservationists from around the world and celebrities gathered to watch the destruction.
The move, which follows similar events in the Philippines and Gabon in recent years, is part of a global effort to combat elephant poaching, on the rise because of growing demand for ivory trinkets in Asia. Proponents argue that crushing the ivory conveys to illegal traffickers and collectors that it has no value unless it is attached to an elephant.
. . .
But critics of the practice said they worry that destroying the coveted commodity, sometimes referred to as “white gold,” could instead create the perception that the world’s remaining ivory is more valuable–and drive poachers to kill more elephants for their tusks. “This could be self-defeating,” said Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes, an independent conservation economist.
. . .
While praising efforts to preserve elephants, some in conservation circles consider crushing contraband ivory to be an ineffective strategy.
Kirsten Conrad, a wildlife conservation consultant who has studied the Chinese ivory market, said elephants could be better served if sustainably harvested ivory–from elephants that died from natural causes, for example–were regularly offered for sale.
The proceeds would give communities in Africa an incentive to better protect wildlife, and the steady supply would dissuade speculators in China from stockpiling, as she says they are doing now. A kilo of raw ivory can sell for up to $3,000. “We’re losing an elephant every 16 minutes,” she said. “We should look really hard at legal trade.”

For the full story, see:
ANA CAMPOY. “Crushing Illegal Ivory Trade; In Move to Combat Elephant Poaching, U.S. Destroys Six Tons of ‘White Gold’.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Nov. 15, 2013): A3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Nov. 14, 2013, and has the title “Crushing Illegal Ivory Trade; In Move to Combat Elephant Poaching, Government Agency Destroys Six Tons of ‘White Gold’.”)

“Ivory on display before the U.S. crushed it in Commerce City, Colo., Thursday. On Thursday the government destroyed nearly six tons of seized contraband ivory tusks and trinkets.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.

The Market Incentive to Conserve

(p. 78) Carnegie, having satisfied himself that there was oil in the ground and a way to ship it to Pittsburgh, agreed to invest in Coleman’s oil company. While other prospectors fantasized only about the liquid gold that lay deep in the ground, Coleman and Carnegie believed that in the not too distant future the wells would run dry. To prepare for that day and turn it to their advantage, Coleman proposed–and Carnegie agreed–to construct a man-made lake, pump the oil from their wells into it, and leave it there until the supply dwindled and prices rose. Coleman and Carnegie waited for the region to run out of oil while their lake leaked thousands of barrels daily. Unable to find any efficient way to store the oil, they had to sell it on the open market.

Source:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)

Global Warming Has Little Correlation with Levels of Carbon Dioxide

The authors of the commentary quoted below are Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer. Schmitt has at various times been a U.S. Senator, an Apollo 17 astronaut, and an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton University, and previously served as the Director at the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Research.

(p. A19) Of all of the world’s chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That’s simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.

The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA’s and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been–and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere. There isn’t the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather.
. . .
We know that carbon dioxide has been a much larger fraction of the earth’s atmosphere than it is today, and the geological record shows that life flourished on land and in the oceans during those times. The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science.

For the full commentary, see:
Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer. “OPINION; In Defense of Carbon Dioxide; The demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlation with global temperature.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., May 9, 2013): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 8, 2013, and has the title “OPINION; Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide; The demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlation with global temperature.” )

The lack of correlation between carbon dioxide and global temperature is rigorously supported in:
McMillan, David G., and Mark E. Wohar. “The Relationship between Temperature and CO2 Emissions: Evidence from a Short and Very Long Dataset.” Applied Economics 45, no. 26 (2013): 3683-90.

Wind Power Fined $1 Million for Killing Birds

“A golden eagle flies over a wind turbine on Duke Energy’s wind farm in Converse County, Wyo.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A17) The Justice Department announced late . . . [in the week of Nov. 17-23] that a subsidiary of Duke Energy has agreed to pay $1 million for killing golden eagles and other federally protected birds at two of the company’s wind projects in Wyoming. The guilty plea was a long-overdue victory for the rule of law and a sign that green energy might be going out of vogue.

As Justice noted in its news release, this is the first time a case has been brought against a wind company for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The 1918 law makes it a federal crime to kill any bird of more than 1,000 different species. Over the past few decades, federal authorities have brought hundreds of cases against oil and gas companies for killing birds, while the wind industry has enjoyed a de facto exemption. By bringing criminal charges against Duke for killing 14 golden eagles and 149 other protected birds, Justice has ended the legal double standard on enforcement.

For the full commentary, see:
ROBERT BRYCE. “Wind Power Is Brought to Justice; Duke Energy’s guilty plea for killing protected birds is an ominous sign for renewable energy.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Nov. 29, 2013): A17.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed words, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Nov. 28, 2013.)

Politically Correct Artisanal Locally Sourced Combat Video Game

“Call of Duty: Ghosts Female avatars have been added, and so has an “extinction” mode involving fighting aliens, in this game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC.” Source of caption and image: online version of the NYT review quoted and cited below.

From a review of the video game “Call of Duty: Ghosts”:

(p. C5) “. . . the South Americans torture a character using artisanal, locally sourced interrogation techniques supposedly (and naturally) used by Amazonian tribes.”

For the full review, see:
CHRIS SUELLENTROP. “VIDEO GAME REVIEW; A Fantastical Shootout, Moving Across Space and Time.” The New York Times (Weds., November 6, 2013): C5.
(Note: ellipsis added; bold in caption in original of both print and online versions.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date November 5, 2013.)

Spain’s $11 Billion Per Year Slows Global Warming by 61 Hours

(p. A17) Today Spain spends about 1% of GDP throwing money at green energy such as solar and wind power. The $11 billion a year is more than Spain spends on higher education.
At the end of the century, with current commitments, these Spanish efforts will have delayed the impact of global warming by roughly 61 hours, according to the estimates of Yale University’s well-regarded Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model. Hundreds of billions of dollars for 61 additional hours? That’s a bad deal.

For the full commentary, see:
BJORN LOMBORG. “Green Energy Is the Real Subsidy Hog; Renewables receive three times as much money per energy unit as fossil fuels.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Nov. 12, 2013): A17.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Nov. 11, 2013.)

Farm Land Reverts to Forest as Farmers Move to Cities

“NEW GROWTH; Marta Ortega de Wing once raised pigs in Chilibre, Panama, on land now reverting to nature, a trend dimming the view of primeval forests as sacred.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) CHILIBRE, Panama — The land where Marta Ortega de Wing raised hundreds of pigs until 10 years ago is being overtaken by galloping jungle — palms, lizards and ants.

Instead of farming, she now shops at the supermarket and her grown children and grandchildren live in places like Panama City and New York.
Here, and in other tropical countries around the world, small holdings like Ms. Ortega de Wing’s — and much larger swaths of farmland — are reverting to nature, as people abandon their land and move to the cities in search of better livings.
These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest — an iconic environmental cause — may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.
“There is far more forest here than there was 30 years ago,” said Ms. Ortega de Wing, 64, who remembers fields of mango trees and banana plants.
The new forests, the scientists argue, could blunt the effects of rain forest destruction by absorbing carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, one crucial role that rain forests play. They could also, to a lesser extent, provide habitat for endangered species.

For the full story, see:
ELISABETH ROSENTHAL. “New Jungles Prompt a Debate on Saving Primeval Rain Forests.” The New York Times (Fri., January 30, 2009): A1 & A10.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date January 29, 2009 and has the title “New Jungles Prompt a Debate on Rain Forests.”)

Innovative Fracking Entrepreneurs Again Show that Energy Is Only Limited by Ingenuity

Source of book image: online version of the NYT review quoted and cited below.

(p. 7) In “The Frackers,” Gregory Zuckerman sets out a 25-year narrative that focuses on the half-dozen or so Texas and Oklahoma energy companies behind the fracking boom, especially Chesapeake Energy, the Oklahoma City giant that is the Exxon Mobil of fracking. Technologies are born. Gushers gush. And fortunes are made and lost.

In the process, Mr. Zuckerman assembles a chorus of little-heard American voices, from George Mitchell, the Greek goatherd’s son whose company first perfected fracking, to Chesapeake’s two founders, Aubrey K. McClendon and Tom L. Ward.
. . .
Geologists knew that layers of shale spread across North America contained commercial amounts of oil and gas, but not until a young geologist at Mr. Mitchell’s company, Mitchell Energy, perfected a new “secret sauce” of water-based fracturing liquids in the early 1990s did layers of shale — in Mitchell’s case, the Barnett Shale of North Texas — melt away and begin to yield jaw-dropping gushers.
Oryx Energy, a company that was based in Dallas, was among the first to pair fracking with horizontal drilling, producing even more startling results. Still, it took years, Mr. Zuckerman writes, before larger businesses, especially the skeptical major oil companies, fathomed what their smaller rivals had achieved. This allowed what were flyspeck outfits like Chesapeake to lease vast acreage in shale-rich areas, from Montana to eastern Pennsylvania.

For the full review, see:
BRYAN BURROUGH. “OFF THE SHELF; The Birth of an Energy Boom.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., November 2, 2013): 7.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date November 2, 2013, and has the title “OFF THE SHELF; ‘The Frackers’ and the Birth of an Energy Boom.”)

Book being reviewed:
Zuckerman, Gregory. The Frackers: The Outrageous inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2013.

Wind Power Increases Government Corruption

“Kathy Laclair of Churubusco, N.Y., dislikes the noise from the wind turbine blades and says their shadows give her vertigo.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) Lured by state subsidies and buoyed by high oil prices, the wind industry has arrived in force in upstate New York, promising to bring jobs, tax revenue and cutting-edge energy to the long-struggling region. But in town after town, some residents say, the companies have delivered something else: an epidemic of corruption and intimidation, as they rush to acquire enough land to make the wind farms a reality.

“It really is renewable energy gone wrong,” said the Franklin County district attorney, Derek P. Champagne, who began a criminal inquiry into the Burke Town Board last spring and was quickly inundated with complaints from all over the state about the (p. A16) wind companies.
. . .
. . . corruption is a major concern. In at least 12 counties, Mr. Champagne said, evidence has surfaced about possible conflicts of interest or improper influence.
In Prattsburgh, N.Y., a Finger Lakes community, the town supervisor cast the deciding vote allowing private land to be condemned to make way for a wind farm there, even after acknowledging that he had accepted real estate commissions on at least one land deal involving the farm’s developer.
A town official in Bellmont, near Burke, took a job with a wind company after helping shepherd through a zoning law to permit and regulate the towers, according to local residents. And in Brandon, N.Y., nearby, the town supervisor told Mr. Champagne that after a meeting during which he proposed a moratorium on wind towers, he had been invited to pick up a gift from the back seat of a wind company representative’s car.
When the supervisor, Michael R. Lawrence, looked inside, according to his complaint to Mr. Champagne, he saw two company polo shirts and a leather pouch that he suspected contained cash.
When Mr. Lawrence asked whether the pouch was part of the gift, the representative replied, “That’s up to you,” according to the complaint.

For the full story, see:
NICHOLAS CONFESSORE. “In Rural New York, Windmills Can Bring Whiff of Corruption.” The New York Times (Mon., August 18, 2008): A1 & A16.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date August 17, 2008.)

“To some upstate towns, wind power promises prosperity. Others fear noise, spoiled views and the corrupting of local officials.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Paper Towels Are Better than Air Dryers at Removing Bacteria

Green environmentalists have forced hot air hand dryers on us in many public restrooms. They are slow and noisy and frustrating, and many of us leave the restroom with still-wet hands. But did you also know that by taking away our paper towels, the environmentalists are helping to spread disease? Read the article abstract below:

(p. 791) The transmission of bacteria is more likely to occur from wet skin than from dry skin; therefore, the proper drying of hands after washing should be an integral part of the hand hygiene process in health care. This article systematically reviews the research on the hygienic efficacy of different hand-drying methods. A literature search was conducted in April 2011 using the electronic databases PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Search terms used were hand dryer and hand drying. The search was limited to articles published in English from January 1970 through March 2011. Twelve studies were included in the review. Hand-drying effectiveness includes the speed of drying, degree of dryness, effective removal of bacteria, and prevention of cross-contamination. This review found little agreement regarding the relative effectiveness of electric air dryers. However, most studies suggest that paper towels can dry hands efficiently, remove bacteria effectively, and cause less contamination of the washroom environment. From a hygiene viewpoint, paper towels are superior to electric air dryers. Paper towels should be recommended in locations where hygiene is paramount, such as hospitals and clinics.

Source:
Cunrui, Huang, Ma Wenjun, and Susan Stack. “The Hygienic Efficacy of Different Hand-Drying Methods: A Review of the Evidence.” Mayo Clinic Proceedings 87, no. 8 (Aug. 2012): 791-98.

Kerosene Creatively Destroyed Whale Oil

“The whale-oil lamps at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum are obsolete, though at one time, whale oil lighted much of the Western world.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 20) Like oil, particularly in its early days, whaling spawned dazzling fortunes, depending on the brute labor of tens of thousands of men doing dirty, sweaty, dangerous work. Like oil, it began with the prizes closest to home and then found itself exploring every corner of the globe. And like oil, whaling at its peak seemed impregnable, its product so far superior to its trifling rivals, like smelly lard oil or volatile camphene, that whaling interests mocked their competitors.

“Great noise is made by many of the newspapers and thousands of the traders in the country about lard oil, chemical oil, camphene oil, and a half-dozen other luminous humbugs,” The Nantucket Inquirer snorted derisively in 1843. It went on: “But let not our envious and — in view of the lard oil mania — we had well nigh said, hog-gish opponents, indulge themselves in any such dreams.”
But, in fact, whaling was already just about done, said Eric Jay Dolin, who . . . is the author of “Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America.” Whales near North America were becoming scarce, and the birth of the American petroleum industry in 1859 in Titusville, Pa., allowed kerosene to supplant whale oil before the electric light replaced both of them and oil found other uses.
. . .
Mr. Dolin said the message for today was that one era’s irreplaceable energy source could be the next one’s relic. Like whaling, he said, big oil is ripe to be replaced by something newer, cleaner, more appropriate for its moment.

For the full story, see:
PETER APPLEBOME. “OUR TOWNS; Once They Thought Whale Oil Was Indispensable, Too.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., August 3, 2008): 20.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the title, “OUR TOWNS; They Used to Say Whale Oil Was Indispensable, Too.”)

Dolin’s book is:
Dolin, Eric Jay. Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007.