The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Resources, Standards of Living on Jan 16th, 2012
A former student sends me the link to this amazing video. Julian Simon (as close to an intellectual hero as I have) called people the Ultimate Resource. Here is an example of why. Keep this in mind when you hear people worrying about 1.4 billion Chinese getting richer than us, or trying to convince you [...]
Posted in Resources on Jan 1st, 2012
Happy New Year everyone. Two quick thoughts for the start of the year: We’ve managed to explore only about 5% of the oceans in our entire human history to this point. This means that 95% of the oceans remain unexplored. We’ve managed to explore about only 8 miles down into the surface of the Earth. [...]
Posted in Resources on Dec 27th, 2011
Oh no! There’s only 4,200 cubic kilometers of Krypton left in the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere. If humans keep using Krypton at current rates … oops … scratch that.
Posted in Resources on Dec 16th, 2011
If water cannot be priced right in the “free-market capitalist” United States, then there is little hope that it is going to be priced right around the rest of the world. If you wish to be worried about an environmental problem, making good use of the world’s fresh water supplies is top of the list [...]
Posted in Central Planning, Resources on Oct 17th, 2011
Did I say cooler? Here’s Jeff Sachs as the world approaches 7 billion people: The world population continues its rapid ascent … unless the world population stabilizes during the 21st century, the consequences for humanity could be grim … A rising population puts enormous pressures on a planet already plunging into environmental catastrophe. Sachs himself [...]
Posted in Resources on Aug 14th, 2011
In 2010, the total amount of installed solar capacity in the United States was 956 Megawatts. That sounds like a lot. But by my estimates, a typical US household requires a flow of 1.24 kilowatts. (The EIA reports average household energy use per year to be 10,896 kilowatt-hours (that’s a stock measure that we need [...]
Posted in Resources on Jul 28th, 2011
The reason to have clean, renewable, abundant energy is not, as many would like to believe, to save the planet. Heresy! The reason to have clean, renewable, abundant energy is to get really, really, really, really inexpensive energy. In my view it is totally astounding that this is not the focus of the “energy problem.” [...]
Posted in Resources on Feb 25th, 2011
Have you ever stopped to appreciate the awesome size of a single mountain peak? What would it take for us to mine the entire volume of rock from the prominence of Mt. Whitney (the amount the peak rises from the base, which could be well above sea level), the tallest mountain in the lower 48? [...]
Posted in Resources, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 4th, 2010
I’ve blogged this idea before, but it is worth revisiting. When you have a chance to get into a discussion of economics or the environment with a progressive minded friend some day ask them if they think that under market capitalism workers get the short-end of the deal. I am sure they would say yes, [...]
Posted in Resources on Sep 22nd, 2010
When I graduated from grad school in 2004 and started teaching, I would start classes by showing students just how much oil was “left” for the world to use up. When I started, there were thought to be 1.265 trillion barrels of oil left. At the world annual rate of consumption at that time (30.08 [...]
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