The author of a new book on how rising oil prices will change America makes the claims that higher gasoline prices will make the country healthier and safer. Christopher Steiner asserts that, for every $1 that gasoline prices rise, obesity rates drop by 10% (as people walk more and eat out less). As for "safer", that comes in when high gasoline prices force police out of their cruisers and onto bicycles and foot patrols, where they can interact more closely with their communities. [more inside]
posted by acb on Jul 22, 2009 - 61 comments

Recently, John Michael Greer has been exploring a little known idea of the deceased economist E.F. Schumacher (a student of the oft-discussed Keynes). "Schumacher drew a hard distinction between primary goods and secondary goods. The latter of these includes everything dealt with by conventional economics: the goods and services produced by human labor and exchanged among human beings. The former includes all those things necessary for human life and economic activity that are produced not by human beings, but by nature. Schumacher pointed out that primary goods, as the phrase implies, need to come first in any economic analysis because they supply the preconditions for the production of secondary goods. Renewable resources, he proposed, form the equivalent of income in the primary economy, while nonrenewable resources are the equivalent of capital; to insist that an economic system is sound when it is burning through nonrenewable resources at a rate that will lead to rapid depletion is thus as silly as claiming that a business is breaking even if it’s covering up huge losses by drawing down its bank accounts." [more inside]
posted by symbollocks on Jul 10, 2009 - 14 comments

Water footprint - "of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation"
posted by Gyan on Jan 11, 2007 - 9 comments

Open Secrets - the trouble with Enron
posted by Gyan on Jan 2, 2007 - 68 comments

Fair Price Energy. One persons idea for a free market solution to the fossil fuel problem.
posted by stbalbach on Sep 2, 2006 - 46 comments

Crime in the Suites. William Greider claims that the Enron collapse demonstrates the failure of market orthodoxy.
posted by Ty Webb on Jan 22, 2002 - 29 comments

Alberta will face a disastrous competitive and economic disadvantage if Canada signs the Kyoto accord. Meanwhile, this year has been one of the worst for smog in Toronto. Some municipalities in Ontario are voluntarily looking towards alternate energy sources because they feel, in the long run the costs will be lower (lower health costs, avoiding higher fossil fuel costs, etc. - sorry, no link) What do you think? Is it possible to have economically viable alternative energy, and is the US setting a bad example for countries that feel they need to compete?
posted by nprigoda on Jul 24, 2001 - 12 comments

California's Energy Crisis, minute by minute. Interesting to watch, even when you feel that we're all over-reacting a bit.
posted by gazould on Mar 26, 2001 - 18 comments

California Blackouts Inevitable says the U.S. Govt Energy Secretary. He is against price caps. It seems there is a lack of understanding on his part to grasp a *public good* that benefits all. Having a few producers control a market with a high cost for competitors to enter the market to form true competition screams for some control. Particularly for a commodity that business and people a like use to drive the overall economy. Since the economy is in such great shape maybe we don't need these controls [sic].
posted by vanderwal on Mar 16, 2001 - 9 comments