National Academies Press / Committee to Review the Federal Response to the Health Effects Associated with the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill; Institute of Medicine http://download.nap.edu/cart/deliver.cgi?record_id=13036 (free PDF with registration) [Description] It is as yet uncertain how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will affect the health of clean-up workers and volunteers, residents, and visitors … Continue reading »
Posted on November 1, 2010 …
Unlocking the Electric Mobility Potential of Toronto: Moving Toward an Electric Mobility Master Plan for the City
Pollution Probe http://www.pollutionprobe.org/PDFs/EMMP.pdf [From Executive Summary] The use of electric vehicles (EVs) and EV technologies can help to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and criteria air contaminants (CACs) from transportation when it displaces the combustion of gasoline and diesel—currently the dominant sources of energy used to power vehicles. In Ontario, the energy to power … Continue reading »
Environmental Laws: Summaries of Major Statutes Administered by the Environmental Protection Agency
Congressional Research Service http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30798.pdf [Summary] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970 to consolidate numerous federal pollution control responsibilities that had been divided among several federal agencies. EPA’s responsibilities grew over time as Congress enacted an increasing number of environmental statutes and major amendments to these statutes. EPA’s primary responsibilities include the regulation … Continue reading »
Financial Imbalances, Middle East Industrialization, and Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Baker Institute for Public Policy / Mahmoud A. El-Gamal http://tinyurl.com/2882dt7 [Abstract] Early into the new millennium, many observers expected the financial imbalances between export-oriented East Asia, especially China, and consumption-oriented advanced economies, especially the U.S., to be sustainable. However, as El-Gamal and Jaffe (2010) have shown, the period of sustained growth despite those financial imbalances … Continue reading »
Implications of Offshoring Carbon Emissions for Climate Policy
Baker Institute for Public Policy / Robert Harriss and Bin Shui http://tinyurl.com/39uu7h5 [Introduction] International trade in commercial commodities is a significant factor contributing to the growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and future changes in the Earth’s climate. China and the United States, as leading exporting and importing nations and top emitters of CO2 … Continue reading »
Wind Power in the United States: Prospects and Consequences
Baker Institute for Public Policy / Peter R. Hartley http://tinyurl.com/37ghdev [From Introduction] Wind power generating capacity installed in the United States has grown at an average annual rate of around 30 percent since 2000. A consequence of this rapid growth is that the demands for fossil fuels to generate electricity are likely to be lower … Continue reading »
Innovation, Renewable Energy, and Macroeconomic Growth
Baker Institute for Public Policy / Peter R. Hartley, Kenneth B. Medlock III, Ted Temzelides, and Xinya Zhang http://tinyurl.com/2uc2a58 [Abstract] Many studies assume that the optimal size of research and development (R&D) in the energy sector is five to 10 times the current level. Is the energy sector under-investing in R&D? What would be the … Continue reading »
“Climate-Smart” Agriculture: Policies, Practices and Financing for Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations http://tinyurl.com/23p9v3s [From Introduction] Over the past six decades world agriculture has become considerably more efficient. Improvements in production systems and crop and livestock breeding programmes have resulted in a doubling of food production while increasing the amount of agricultural land by just 10 percent. However, climate change … Continue reading »
Sherman’s Lagoon on Ecosystem Services
King Features Syndicate / by Jim Toomey http://www.slagoon.com/cgi-bin/sviewer.pl?selectdate=10/31/10
How Many Times Could You Replicate Polyface Farm? A Schematic Model of Ecosystem Services in Agriculture
US EPA, National Center for Environmental Economics / by David Simpson http://yosemite.epa.gov/EE/epa/eed.nsf/WPNumber/2010-12?OpenDocument There has been considerable recent interest in the idea that farms can produce both food and a variety of ecosystem services. One particularly intriguing notion is that farmers might find it in their own interest to adopt an “ecosystem services” approach to production … Continue reading »
