Moving

Alright, it's time to move the blog to a new name, one that I used a while back. It's matthewarcher.blogspot.com.

I'll copy my recent posts to that one, but this blog will stay here, too, since all my travel posts are here.

Alan Krueger Is In!

Obama announced this morning that Alan Krueger will take over the White House Council of Economic Advisors. This is great news for the country, as Professor Krueger is one of the most prominent labor economists in the world.


For me, this nomination is even more exciting because he's one of the pioneers of the Environmental Kuznet's Curve theory, a central element of most environmental economics literature. I used it extensively in my undergraduate thesis, and I know it will play a big role in my master's degree.

This is a good step forward for the US. Best of luck Dr. Krueger! You'll need it.

What the Frack?! An Earthquake in Washington, DC

Hydraulic fracturing could have caused the earthquake today that shook DC, New York, and other major US cities.


I've read before that fracking is commonly associated with earthquakes, which makes sense considering that the process involves pumping a toxic cocktail of water and chemicals almost two miles into the earth's crust to break apart the dense shale that contains natural gas. I've also read about widespread fracking in neighboring West Virginia. So today when I saw the news about the earthquake in Virginia, I put two and two together and did a bit of research on Google Scholar.

As it turns out, Bame and Fehler (1986) found a statistically significant relationship between microearthquakes (between 0.4 and 3.1) and their proximity to fracking sites. Fehler, House and Kaieda (1987) also found a significant relationship between fault and joint planes, i.e. where earthquakes occur, and the fluid path created by the hydraulic fracturing injection process. The science must be convincing, as even Fox News reported earler this year that Arkansas earthquakes were very likely associated with fracking.

It's sad that despite the overwhelming evidence against fracking, oil companies and their Washington shills are still able to get away with this blatantly deleterious practice. Not only have they repeatedly enacted dangerous legislation that helps companies hide their chemical lists, they've even gone so far as to encourage fracking with tax subsidies and other government benefits. Remember, these companies are some of the most profitable in the world, yet the US government continues to reward them for polluting our water, land and air.

Now, that's not to say that natural gas extraction is 100% bad or that mitigating its environmental impacts is impossible, merely that it's poorly regulated. In fact, it's much cleaner than coal and petroleum, generating about half as much CO2, less than a fifth as much CO, and a fifth as much NOx as coal. Obviously, problems still exist, but a recent study by researchers at MIT notes that:

the environmental impacts of shale development are challenging but manageable. Shale development requires large-scale fracturing of the shale formation to induce economic production rates. There has been concern that these fractures can also penetrate shallow freshwater zones and contaminate them with fracturing fluid, but there is no evidence that this is occurring. There is, however, evidence of natural gas migration into freshwater zones in some areas, most likely as a result of substandard well completion practices by a few operators.

Moreover, There are some economic benefits from expanding natural gas use. For one, it's cheaper, cleaner and more readily available than coal and petroleum. There are also some national security benefits, as we would be significantly less dependent on foreign oil. For more of the benefits on natural gas (and no drawbacks!), visit the American Natural Gas Alliance.

Stricter regulation is necessary, especially if a misstep by a well-worker can lead to groundwater contamination for a local population. Congress has to allow the EPA to do its job and make the distinction between science and politics.

But, even if regulation is improved and the process is cleaned up, the relationship between fracking and earthquakes is hard to deny. More broadly, it's also difficult to deny the relationship between human-induced climate change and the increasing occurrence of natural disasters. Hard decisions have to be made, and it's unfortunate that our voices will be ignored, even though the general population is the most directly affected.

Sources:

Bame, D., and M. Fehler (1986), Observations of long period earthquakes accompanying hydraulic fracturing, Geophys. Res. Lett., 13(2), 149-152.

Fehler, M., L. House, and H. Kaieda (1987), Determining Planes Along Which Earthquakes Occur: Method and Application to Earthquakes Accompanying Hydraulic Fracturing, J. Geophys. Res., 92(B9), 9407-9414.

你胖了!

"Nihao, Ma Shukai! Ni pang le!"

This is how I was greeted today as I saw my host family for the first time in almost two years.

"Hey Matthew! You've gotten fat!"

It's alright to say that in Chinese culture (right Kelli?), but it still shocks me a little every time I hear a Chinese person say it. In Aunt Pan's defense, I was pretty skinny last time I was here.

Other than being verbally assaulted (I'm kidding, obviously), catching up with Aunt Pan and Uncle Zhou has been great. I think they were genuinely happy to see me, and I am definitely glad to be back in Shanghai with my Chinese family.

At dinner, Aunt Pan handed me a big bowl of....红烧猪肉 or pork braised in soy sauce. Thanks again to Chinese cultural traditions, it would have been very rude for me to refuse it, even though I'm a vegetarian now. My stomach hurts a little bit now, but I'm going to go to bed early and see how I feel in the morning. I guess a two week break from vegetarianism won't kill me...

China!

Greetings from the Coffee Bean in Shanghai!

I forgot to mention that I'll be in China for the next two weeks. I've come for two reasons: first, to present my thesis at the Shanghai International Conference on Social Science, and second, to visit friends and (host) family who I haven't seen in almost two years. A huge thanks to the Croft Institute and the SMB Honors College at Ole Miss for funding!

Shanghai is HOT and HUMID, but I'm used to it, so it's not unbearable. The sky seems a little clearer here, but it may just be because the rain/monsoon has washed some of the smog away. I'm sure when it heats back up, I'll see those beautiful orange skies I'm used to.

I have a pretty exciting schedule of things to do while I'm here. On Monday, I'm meeting with the author of a book on water pollution and droughts along the Yellow River in China, Bert van Dijk. He also writes for a newspaper in the Netherlands, so he's basically doing exactly what I'd like to do for a career, at least before I go back for a PhD (if I decide to do that). On Wednesday, I have to go register for my conference, and after that I'm going to an LSE send-off party hosted by the Alumni Association. I couldn't go to the one in Atlanta because it was too close to my China trip, so hopefully this will be a good way to meet some people before I leave for London in September. The next day is the first day of the conference, and I'll present my paper on Saturday. Needless to say, I'm very excited. I'll leave Shanghai on Monday, August 22.

I'll try to post again before I leave.

Until then,
Matthew

On the London Riots

There's a lot of terrible news coming out of London right now. Unfortunately, this kind of "activism" is a sham, just like the rioter's putative hardships - an excuse to act like animals and take what's not theirs, all under the guise of social change. These self-proclaimed "revolutionaries" are spitting in the face of real activists - people in Syria and Libya and Tunisia and Egypt who have given their lives for a real cause and continue to face real struggles. Sure, every country has its problems, but this kind of behavior doesn't solve problems; it exacerbates them.

London rioters are thugs, they're thieves, they're cowards, they're domestic terrorists, and they deserve to be punished under the fullest extent of British law. There is no excuse for burning down people's businesses or stealing their livelihoods. There's no message to be sent by blowing up buses or looting every store you see.

And do you really want to talk about police brutality? Perhaps it's my Republican upbringing or my experience in China, but these delinquents better be glad I'm not their Chief of Police...

A final word, true activists don't have to cover their faces when they protest because they're not ashamed of what they're doing. These people in London are pathetic and deserve sympathy from no one.

Call Mr. Nunnelee about fracking

I called Congressman Alan Nunnelee's (R-MS) office a few days ago to let him know how I felt about this whole debt ceiling debacle. Today, I received a very nice letter from his office thanking me for my input. I noticed on his letterhead that he's a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, so I went to his website to see if he was taking advantage of his position on such an important subcommittee.


Nowhere on his House website does Nunnelee mention climate change, despite the fact that his district is currently facing unbelievably high temperatures. It was 117° in North Mississippi this week. My car read 121° the other day in a parking lot. He touts his participation in the American Energy Initiative, a Republican effort to "address rising gasoline prices and expand American energy production." However, despite the Initiative's support of the development and implementation of sustainable energy production techniques (e.g. wind, geothermal, etc.), there is little mention of climate change, and searching "climate change" yields a list of inflammatory, anti-Democrat articles, as though Congressional liberals have somehow conjured up higher temperatures, melting glaciers, desertification and increased frequencies of natural disasters. Both the Initiative and Congressman Nunnelee's websites mention alternative energy, but focus almost primarily on US energy security.

Certainly, expanding domestic energy production is necessary and is in the interest of our national security. But, a huge part of that must be research and development of NEW and SUSTAINABLE energy options. A solid first step is admitting that climate change is real, and to stop citing bogus science that suggests otherwise and planting doubt in the public's mind. It must be a central issue for every politician, regardless of political affiliation, especially those who sit on relevant committees and subcommittees. For example, Nunnelee is part of a Republican movement called the House Energy Action Team (HEAT), but despite their name, there is no mention of global warming. Ironic? Yes. Surprising? Not at all.

Republicans have vilified environmentalists, legitimate climate change scientists, politicians who support environmental legislation, and economists who tackle pollution and abatement issues. The health of our communities has been politicized, and it's a shame.

But Mr. Nunnelee has an opportunity to do something great. As hydraulic fracturing (also known as "fracking", which I've discussed here before) continues to spread across the country, it has met very little political resistance. The EPA is powerless to stop this extremely harmful practice; they haven't even won the battle that would require oil companies to disclose what chemicals they use. And recently, a New York law that would have forced a more comprehensive review of the environmental and health ramifications of fracking in the Delaware River basin was struck down by the US government, citing "sovereignty" issues. It seems the government may be scared of what a complete report might uncover, and the fact that our government is so quick to dismiss such an obvious health hazard is very frightening.

So what can Mr. Nunnelee do? First, he should publicly condemn hydraulic fracturing, and as a member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, his doing so would be very powerful. It would also make him look like a strong, open-minded conservative leader, rather than a pawn of Tea Party fruitcakes like Michele Bachmann and Joe Barton (a documented liar and quite possibly the worst, most corrupt, most ignorant person in our government, evidenced here and here). There is no room for compromise (an idea most Republicans seem especially comfortable with following the recent debt talks) when it comes to pumping unknown chemicals thousands of feet underground to break up the rocks. Remember, it makes tap water flammable. This isn't a partisan issue, and conservative members of Congress - members like Alan Nunnelee - now have the opportunity to show Americans that Republicans are capable of caring about more than big corporations.

It's time for Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle to stand up for the people they represent, and Robert Stavins discusses the possibility - and feasibility - of market-based environmental protection initiatives that would allow for "flexible compliance" options and should pacify both Democrats and Republicans (and, like, save the world, obviously). He goes on to warn us about the consequences of falling prey (again) to partisan politics:

[R]egardless of what they think about climate change, conservatives should resist demonizing market-based approaches to environmental protection and reverting to pre-1980s thinking that saddled business and consumers with needless costs.

Market-based approaches to environmental protection should be lauded, not condemned, by political leaders, no matter what their party affiliation. Otherwise, there will be severe and perverse long-term consequences for the economy, for business, and for consumers.

These kinds of regulatory policies would be an easy sale to Democrats. So now it's time for Republicans to step up. A good place to start is for Republican Congressmen like Alan Nunnelee to use their positions on relevant committees and subcommittees to make a difference. They must recognize the legitimacy of climate chance science and the exigency of its implications, and they must act now.

If you agree, call Mr. Nunnelee at (202) 225-4306 and let him know.

Compromise, Hell!

(I read this a few weeks ago in Berry's collection of essays The Way of Ignorance, and it's completely relevant right now. Any added emphasis, i.e. italics or bold, is mine. A recent blog post by Paul Krugman is equally relevant, and I encourage you to read it after this, to see how two great thinkers come to a similar conclusion.)

WE ARE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY—I mean our country itself, our land. This is a terrible thing to know, but it is not a reason for despair unless we decide to continue the destruction. If we decide to continue the destruction, that will not be because we have no other choice. This destruction is not necessary. It is not inevitable, except that by our submissiveness we make it so.

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all—by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians—be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.

How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.

Since the beginning of the conservation effort in our country, conservationists have too often believed that we could protect the land without protecting the people. This has begun to change, but for a while yet we will have to reckon with the old assumption that we can preserve the natural world by protecting wilderness areas while we neglect or destroy the economic landscapes—the farms and ranches and working forests—and the people who use them. That assumption is understandable in view of the worsening threats to wilderness areas, but it is wrong. If conservationists hope to save even the wild lands and wild creatures, they are going to have to address issues of economy, which is to say issues of the health of the landscapes and the towns and cities where we do our work, and the quality of that work, and the well-being of the people who do the work.

Governments seem to be making the opposite error, believing that the people can be adequately protected without protecting the land. And here I am not talking about parties or party doctrines, but about the dominant political assumption. Sooner or later, governments will have to recognize that if the land does not prosper, nothing else can prosper for very long. We can have no industry or trade or wealth or security if we don’t uphold the health of the land and the people and the people’s work.

It is merely a fact that the land, here and everywhere, is suffering. We have the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico and undrinkable water to attest to the toxicity of our agriculture. We know that we are carelessly and wastefully logging our forests. We know that soil erosion, air and water pollution, urban sprawl, the proliferation of highways and garbage are making our lives always less pleasant, less healthful, less sustainable, and our dwelling places more ugly.

Nearly forty years ago my state of Kentucky, like other coal-producing states, began an effort to regulate strip mining. While that effort has continued, and has imposed certain requirements of “reclamation,” strip mining has become steadily more destructive of the land and the land’s future. We are now permitting the destruction of entire mountains and entire watersheds. No war, so far, has done such extensive or such permanent damage. If we know that coal is an exhaustible resource, whereas the forests over it are with proper use inexhaustible, and that strip mining destroys the forest virtually forever, how can we permit this destruction? If we honor at all that fragile creature the topsoil, so long in the making, so miraculously made, so indispensable to all life, how can we destroy it? If we believe, as so many of us profess to do, that the Earth is God’s property and is full of His glory, how can we do harm to any part of it?

In Kentucky, as in other unfortunate states, and again at great public cost, we have allowed—in fact we have officially encouraged—the establishment of the confined animal-feeding industry, which exploits and abuses everything involved: the land, the people, the animals, and the consumers. If we love our country, as so many of us profess to do, how can we so desecrate it?

But the economic damage is not confined just to our farms and forests. For the sake of “job creation,” in Kentucky, and in other backward states, we have lavished public money on corporations that come in and stay only so long as they can exploit people here more cheaply than elsewhere. The general purpose of the present economy is to exploit, not to foster or conserve.

Look carefully, if you doubt me, at the centers of the larger towns in virtually every part of our country. You will find that they are economically dead or dying. Good buildings that used to house needful, useful, locally owned small businesses of all kinds are now empty or have evolved into junk stores or antique shops. But look at the houses, the churches, the commercial buildings, the courthouse, and you will see that more often than not they are comely and well made. And then go look at the corporate outskirts: the chain stores, the fast-food joints, the food-and-fuel stores that no longer can be called service stations, the motels. Try to find something comely or well made there.

What is the difference? The difference is that the old town centers were built by people who were proud of their place and who realized a particular value in living there. The old buildings look good because they were built by people who respected themselves and wanted the respect of their neighbors. The corporate outskirts, on the contrary, were built by people who manifestly take no pride in the place, see no value in lives lived there, and recognize no neighbors. The only value they see in the place is the money that can be siphoned out of it to more fortunate places—that is, to the wealthier suburbs of the larger cities.

Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations.

We citizens have a large responsibility for our delusion and our destructiveness, and I don’t want to minimize that. But I don’t want to minimize, either, the large responsibility that is borne by government.

It is commonly understood that governments are instituted to provide certain protections that citizens individually cannot provide for themselves. But governments have tended to assume that this responsibility can be fulfilled mainly by the police and the military. They have used their regulatory powers reluctantly and often poorly. Our governments have only occasionally recognized the need of land and people to be protected against economic violence. It is true that economic violence is not always as swift, and is rarely as bloody, as the violence of war, but it can be devastating nonetheless. Acts of economic aggression can destroy a landscape or a community or the center of a town or city, and they routinely do so.

Such damage is justified by its corporate perpetrators and their political abettors in the name of the “free market” and “free enterprise,” but this is a freedom that makes greed the dominant economic virtue, and it destroys the freedom of other people along with their communities and livelihoods. There are such things as economic weapons of massive destruction. We have allowed them to be used against us, not just by public submission and regulatory malfeasance, but also by public subsidies, incentives, and sufferances impossible to justify.

We have failed to acknowledge this threat and to act in our own defense. As a result, our once-beautiful and bountiful countryside has long been a colony of the coal, timber, and agribusiness corporations, yielding an immense wealth of energy and raw materials at an immense cost to our land and our land’s people. Because of that failure also, our towns and cities have been gutted by the likes of Wal-Mart, which have had the permitted luxury of destroying locally owned small businesses by means of volume discounts.

Because as individuals or even as communities we cannot protect ourselves against these aggressions, we need our state and national governments to protect us. As the poor deserve as much justice from our courts as the rich, so the small farmer and the small merchant deserve the same economic justice, the same freedom in the market, as big farmers and chain stores. They should not suffer ruin merely because their rich competitors can afford (for a while) to undersell them.

Furthermore, to permit the smaller enterprises always to be ruined by false advantages, either at home or in the global economy, is ultimately to destroy local, regional, and even national capabilities of producing vital supplies such as food and textiles. It is impossible to understand, let alone justify, a government’s willingness to allow the human sources of necessary goods to be destroyed by the “freedom” of this corporate anarchy. It is equally impossible to understand how a government can permit, and even subsidize, the destruction of the land and the land’s productivity. Somehow we have lost or discarded any controlling sense of the interdependence of the Earth and the human capacity to use it well. The governmental obligation to protect these economic resources, inseparably human and natural, is the same as the obligation to protect us from hunger or from foreign invaders. In result, there is no difference between a domestic threat to the sources of our life and a foreign one.

It appears that we have fallen into the habit of compromising on issues that should not, and in fact cannot, be compromised. I have an idea that a large number of us, including even a large number of politicians, believe that it is wrong to destroy the Earth. But we have powerful political opponents who insist that an Earth-destroying economy is justified by freedom and profit. And so we compromise by agreeing to permit the destruction only of parts of the Earth, or to permit the Earth to be destroyed a little at a time—like the famous three-legged pig that was too well loved to be slaughtered all at once.

The logic of this sort of compromising is clear, and it is clearly fatal. If we continue to be economically dependent on destroying parts of the Earth, then eventually we will destroy it all.

So long a complaint accumulates a debt to hope, and I would like to end with hope. To do so I need only repeat something I said at the beginning: Our destructiveness has not been, and it is not, inevitable. People who use that excuse are morally incompetent, they are cowardly, and they are lazy. Humans don’t have to live by destroying the sources of their life. People can change; they can learn to do better. All of us, regardless of party, can be moved by love of our land to rise above the greed and contempt of our land’s exploiters. This of course leads to practical problems, and I will offer a short list of practical suggestions.

We have got to learn better to respect ourselves and our dwelling places. We need to quit thinking of rural America as a colony. Too much of the economic history of our land has been that of the export of fuel, food, and raw materials that have been destructively and too cheaply produced. We must reaffirm the economic value of good stewardship and good work. For that we will need better accounting than we have had so far.

We need to reconsider the idea of solving our economic problems by “bringing in industry.” Every state government appears to be scheming to lure in a large corporation from somewhere else by “tax incentives” and other squanderings of the people’s money. We ought to suspend that practice until we are sure that in every state we have made the most and the best of what is already there. We need to build the local economies of our communities and regions by adding value to local products and marketing them locally before we seek markets elsewhere.

We need to confront honestly the issue of scale. Bigness has a charm and a drama that are seductive, especially to politicians and financiers; but bigness promotes greed, indifference, and damage, and often bigness is not necessary. You may need a large corporation to run an airline or to manufacture cars, but you don’t need a large corporation to raise a chicken or a hog. You don’t need a large corporation to process local food or local timber and market it locally.

And, finally, we need to give an absolute priority to caring well for our land—for every bit of it. There should be no compromise with the destruction of the land or of anything else that we cannot replace. We have been too tolerant of politicians who, entrusted with our country’s defense, become the agents of our country’s destroyers, compromising on its ruin.

And so I will end this by quoting my fellow Kentuckian, a great patriot and an indomitable foe of strip mining, Joe Begley of Blackey: “Compromise, hell!”

Wendell Berry, 2004, from Orion Magazine

Grow up.

I've been intentionally quiet on the debt ceiling because I don't know a ton about it. I can't comprehend numbers like 14.3 trillion.

But I do understand a little bit about economics, and I know that most GOP analyses of this whole debt ceiling crisis are political bullshit. They're playing games with our livelihoods, and they think it's hilarious because they're making Democrats - politicians like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Steny Hoyer - sweat like pigs. For many people from North Mississippi, these people may seem too liberal, but they're good people, and they're looking out for people who are less fortunate than themselves.

Why are our politicians allowed to lie? Jon Kyle (R-AZ) said that Democrats want to raise taxes on middle class families. That's simply not true. Any proposed tax hikes would affect only the 2% of American families that make over $250,000 a year. The top two percent of earners in an economy is not middle class, no matter how you spin it. If you're in the upper echelons of our socioeconomic class system, and you think that paying some of the lowest taxes of a civilized nation is even a little bit decent (or even worse, if you think paying more is "exploitative" or "unfair" or "immoral"), then you're a selfish bastard reprobate. Plain and simple. Scrape the bottom of the barrel, and you'll find those people who think huge corporations like BP and Exxon Mobil deserve huge tax breaks and loopholes - ways to avoid contributing their fair share to our society. These views are irresponsible and unforgivable.

Congressional debates are no longer debates. Congressmen and women know exactly how they're going to vote, and nothing their colleagues say can change it. Very few of our legislators are working for us; they're working for themselves. Republicans lie to us constantly, and you can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices - they're almost giddy when they stick it to Democrats. They love being able to force their backwards ideology on the United States under the guise of "conservatism" and "religion." But in fact, it's just the opposite of that.

If I hear the word "compromise" cross a Republican's - especially a Tea Partier's - lips one more time, I'm going to explode. These people are squeezing the life out of us, and they're happy about it. Nothing they do affects them. They're not accountable for their actions, for their lies, and it's terrifying. Barack Obama and other Democrats have moved farther right than even most Republicans would have been willing to go during the Bush administration, but it's not enough. It will never be enough because House Republicans are ignorant, childish, selfish and backwards. They might get a laugh at seeing President Obama visibly upset on national television, but what they're doing is bad for everyone on the planet.

Ms. Bachmann, Mr. Boehner, Mr. Nunnelee and others, let me tell you how the government works. Raising the debt limit doesn't give the president a "blank check" like you keep saying, so either you're really stupid, a vile liar, or some horrible combination of the two (my vote is on that one). Do you realize that Congress (i.e. you and your colleagues) decide how money is spent in the United States? Do you realize that it's the legislative branch (i.e. you) that dictates spending? Once you decide what to do, the president either signs it into law or vetoes it. Pretty simple. You're an embarrassment to your country. Words do not express how strongly I detest you and your minions.

I've never had so little faith in my government as I do right now.

I'll leave you with Sander Levin's (D-MI) floor statement from earlier today. We really need more people like this, people who are decent and in Washington for the right reasons, to stand up and speak out. It's time to get mad.



Grow up, Republicans. Americans aren't stupid, and we're not blind. If you keep going like this, prepare to fall.

Be advised

Henceforth, I shall follow normal capitalization rules on this blog. Please respond accordingly.

joseph stashkevetch

joseph stashkevetch's work is incredible. i thought these were photographs when i first looked, but they're actually hand-drawn with conté crayon. out of this world.

the dismal science, or why environmental economics is so cool

good social scientists will always tell you that hypotheseses cannot be proved, only supported. but if you're asking a question about complicated statistical relationships, how can we even support something that we can't comprehend?

this questions comes from my calculus IV lesson today, where dr. reid introduced multivariate calculus. as an econ minor, i've encountered partial derivatives and equations with more than one independent variable many times, but i've never studied it in its pure math form. the graph below represents some function z = f(x,y) in 3-D space:


now, this could be an example of, say, the graphical relationship between emissions, z, and GDP per capita and industrial output, x and y. unfortunately, this is very unrealistic, since the assumption that 2 independent variables adequately portray the true nature of industrial emissions is kind of silly.

and therein lies the challenge - understanding the causes of something in a way that isn't humanly understandable, analyzing causal relationships among random variables in dimensions that we can't even imagine.

ah, the joys of problem-solving.

now do you believe me?

like most sensible people, i've been saying for a while that big businesses have too much influence in our government. the economist agrees.

the worst of all are energy companies, who can ignore/rewrite american laws and put people's health in jeopardy, with zero consequences.

gotta fix it, guys.

please stop lying, part 2

it's hard not to be vulgar when you watch a video like this.

michele bachmann is LYING, and she knows it. the EPA does not "kill" jobs, and american energy producers, oil companies and coal miners are some of the least regulated in the world, especially for a developed country.

i talked about this in my last post, but i would be remiss not to mention it again: the porter hypothesis says that intensifying regulations increases innovation, competitiveness and the overall well-being of the economy. regulations - as well as penalties for breaking those regulations - do not hurt an industry; rather, they provide an incentive for that industry to be more efficient. companies that can't cope will fail, but they are replaced by stronger companies that can. for a person who purports to wholeheartedly support free-market capitalism and touts american exceptionalism from every soapbox she manages to slither onto, michele bachmann really doesn't seem to have much faith in our nation's industrial capabilities.

but what about the EPA's other role? do we really not need a federal agency whose sole purpose is to protect our natural environment? what about the people who live near fracking (hydraulic fracturing) sites - people whose tap water is literally flammable (sidenote: PLEASE take a few minutes to watch that link, a trailer for the documentary gasland) because of the chemicals being pumped 1000s of feet underground to extract oil? what about people who live near poorly regulated landfills, like the one in houston, mississippi? in a review of literature conducted by the national institutes of health in 2000, researchers demonstrated a disturbing correlation between a community's proximity to a landfill and the incidence of health problems among residents. some of these afflictions include adult and childhood leukemia; respiratory illnesses; lung, bladder, stomach and rectal cancer; cardiac defects; psychological disorders; low birth weight and birth defects, among others. studies also found a significant correlation between the amount of tap water a pregnant woman drinks and the likelihood she will miscarry.

this research very convincingly illustrates the need for a powerful agency that regulates what people can and can't do to our environment. if you think a company like waste management or exxon mobile or american electric power (aep) is concerned for your health, even in the least, you're an idiot. plain and simple.

at some point you have to ask yourself what you're willing to give up to cling to some backwards, almost archaic concept of "free market" ideals. economically, and in the "free market," it makes sense to allow companies to drill for oil wherever and however they want, even if it means a few thousand more people will die of cancer and a few thousand more babies will be born with birth defects, or not born at all. profits will be higher because of it, and let's face it, those people probably weren't going to buy that much gasoline anyway. sure, it would be great if companies were willing to regulate themselves for the good of mankind, but it's very clear that they don't, and at some point, the government has a moral responsibility to make them.

we HAVE to do something about our politicians who knowingly lie to us for the sake of padding their CEO friends and donors' pocketbooks. a first step in doing that is demanding the truth from people like michele bachmann and many (if not most) of her GOP colleagues. the second step is demanding that they adopt responsible political positions on environmental issues, whether you're a republican or a democrat, and hold them accountable when they don't.

repealing the already too weak EPA won't create jobs, but it will definitely cost us more lives. the health of our communities is clearly at stake, and michele bachmann has proved that she's willing to toss that aside for a chance to spew some hollow "job" rhetoric. shame on her, and shame on everyone who thinks what she's doing is alright.

pardon my french, but this is bullshit.

please stop lying

the GOP has set its sights on environmental regulation, something they think democrats will finally cave on, and some very prominent republican politicians have been propagating some pretty obvious lies about economics and the environment. i'll address some of these in installments over the next few days.

the first is haley barbour, bless his heart, who thinks that "obama's [environmental] policies are hurting our economy, raising energy prices."


that's actually not true. the widely-accepted porter hypothesis suggests that environmental regulations actually encourage innovation, and thus encourage competitiveness, and thus encourage economic well-being and growth. although this theory has its fair share of detractors, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. a company that's required to cut its sulfur dioxide emissions, for example, must either invest in new technology (which creates jobs in a different industry and diversifies the economy), or it has to develop its own new technology, which not only increases efficiency, but could potentially create a new income source for the industry. sometimes, stringent environmental regulations force companies to look at their production strategy and cut out any unnecessary operations, which also increases efficiency. in the long run, the benefit to society and shrinking of economic externalities (e.g. pollution-related diseases, cleanup costs, etc.) far outweigh the cost of installing a few flue-gas desulphurization caps.

moral of the story, barbour is lying, and he knows it. but the republicans want to cut cut cut, even though they know it's a detriment to society. they have a ridiculous party line that they need to toe, and they couldn't care less if they destroy the world in the process.

i'll address another lie tomorrow.

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summer reading list

inspired by my friend emilie, i've decided to outline my summer reading list.

i'm reading two books right now, les miserables by victor hugo and the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde. i wanted to read more classics before moving to london, and i think i definitely picked two winners.

next, i'm going to read stieg larsson's the girl who played with fire. i read the first of the series, the girl with the dragon tattoo, and i really enjoyed it.

i'm also going to re-read the art of the commonplace, which is a collection of essays by wendell berry. i had to read this freshman year in an honors seminar, and i thought it was just okay, but i read a few essays from it again last year, and i realized just how powerful berry's writing is. anyone who claims to be interested in environmental protection, policy or economics needs to read this book.


i've ordered one of my textbooks for next year, environmental economics by charles kolstad, so i'll probably thumb through it before i move in september.

i'm going to round out the summer by reading twelfth night, by william shakespeare.

and finally, stealing a page from emilie's book (punny), i'm going to read some william faulkner. i saw his novel mosquitoes yesterday in square books, so i think i'm going off the beaten path and read it in august before conference/vacation in shanghai.


well, i think that's all i'm going to have time for. i bought ulysses a few years ago, but it's a daunting book, so i've been pushing it off. maybe i'll pack it next year, and one weekend in dublin, i'll be inspired to read it.

next chapter

well, guys, i'm graduated.


it's been a great four years, and i hope the next few will be just as good if not better.

over the summer, i'm taking some advanced math classes and tutoring freshmen chinese students at ole miss. then in august, i'm going to shanghai to present my thesis at the shanghai international conference on social science.

in september, i'll move to london to begin the msc program in environmental economics and climate change at the london school of economics.

hopefully i'll do a better job blogging, but until august at least, expect sporadic postings. i couldn't be more excited about the future, and i'm excited to pick up blogging again and share it with whoever's interested. i hope you enjoy the blog's new look, too.

-matthew