Blog

Paper, Not Plastic

Eli, I wrote about the superiority of paper ballots in The Denver Post back in 2000. Unfortunately, the article has disappeared into the aether. Luckily,…

Op-Eds

Let Friedman Reign

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America By Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus &…

Climate

Blog

FreeRoots

Some of the brightest minds in the online conservative movement — John Hawkins, Patrick Ruffini and Mark Tapscott — are discussing what…

Consumer Freedom

Blog

Better Lifestyle Bureau?

On a day when government takes a large stake in the financial markets, we should be aware that all sorts of organizations are trying to…

Blog

Le Schadenfreude?

The glee in European capitals at the woes of “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism is tangible. Sarkozy and the German finance minister pile on, with Sarkozy saying,…

Blog

Mark-to-Markets for Dummies

Best short explanation of the mark-to-markets issue I have yet seen: Imagine if you had a $200,000 mortgage on a $300,000 house that you…

Blog

My Heart Bleeds

From today’s Greenwire: NEW YORK — The crisis roiling Wall Street is threatening to choke financing for green energy projects. Venture capitalists and private equity…

Energy and Environment

Blog

Brookings Winds Up Doomsday Clock

The Brookings Institution is the most establishment of establishment think-tanks. Old-fashioned, genteel, liberal, they do a lot of good work while at the same time…

Op-Eds

North v South 2.0

In the seventies and eighties it became trendy to talk about the global gap between "North" and "South," in the sense that…

Climate

Human Events

The Wastefulness of Ethanol

Human Events discusses the efficiency of ethanol compared to gasoline with Iain Murray.  Moreover, that one gallon of ethanol that is produced through…

Energy

Blog

Now That’s An Argument

A gang of the usual enviro suspects (NRDC, Blue Green Alliance, Sierra Club and Green For All) together with the United Steel Workers and the…

WND

The Sustainability Movement

WND reports on Iain Murray's book enviornmental catstrophes caused by alarmists.  In his clunkily titled but otherwise excellent new book, “The Really Inconvenient…

Climate

Blog

Congested Pockets

Almost five years ago, I argued that London’s Congestion Charge was merely a wealth transfer from London commuters to the administrators of the charge.

Blog

The Children’s Crusade

Steven Dubner asks whether children are responsible for the recent explosion of environmental concern. He’s got a point. As well as the decidedly non-secular…

Op-Eds

Let Them Burn Ethanol

American grocery stores are starting to introduce food rationing.  Wal Mart is restricting the amount of rice customers can buy.  In Mexico and Yemen,…

Energy

Blog

Heritage Speech

I’ve just got back from delivering a speech at the Heritage Foundation on the subject of my book. I think it went well and…

Blog

The Windy Denmark Question

Yesterday, a listener on the Michael Medved show challenged me that (I paraphrase), “Denmark has adopted wind power at no cost.” I said that I…

Blog

The Indian Question

At a time when liberal condescension is an important issue in domestic American politics, we shouldn’t forget that it is extremely important in the global…

Blog

The Left on Ethanol

As the ethanol disaster gets more and more apparent, the liberal left is trying to wriggle out of any responsibility for it, blaming it on…

Blog

Greening the Issue II

Meanwhile, British grocery chain Sainsbury’s has rejected the idea, proposed by the British government as its major (yes…) environmental initiative, of charging shoppers for…

Blog

Greening the Issue I

This, from British Tory leader David Cameron, who has made his name as a conservative promoter of green issues, is very interesting: Launching the…

Blog

Blinkered Approach

British Conservative Party finance spokesman George Osborne seems to have a blinkered approach to certain aspects of the economy: “An economic strategy for the…

Blog

Bush’s Global Warming Surrender

We’re hearing some very bad things about the President’s likely unconditional surrender on global warming tomorrow. One senior source suggested that the last line of…

Blog

Re: X-Prize – and yet another

Fran’s post raises an important point about trade-offs and the ossifying effects of mandates (why on earth don’t we have a much better system…

Blog

Defending Liberty in India

CEI’s friends at the Liberty Institute in New Delhi have launched a new website, InDefenceofLiberty.org. Of particular interest to openmarket readers might be the…

Blog

Puff the Magic Dragon

More proof that wind power is no panacea for the nation’s looming electricity crisis. The wind dropped in Texas, and caused blackouts: ERCOT…

Blog

Plug-in Hybrids the New Target

Biofuels have recently come under attack from their erstwhile supporters in the liberal environmentalist movement for increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Now it’s the turn of…

Blog

The Concession Question

Jim Geraghty stirred up a minor hornet's nest yesterday with this post on Republican tactics on global warming. After coming in for some pretty…

Blog

RIP Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto, who was murdered in a politically-motivated suicide attack, was the closest the Islamic world has yet got to a secular free-marketeer as a…

Blog

Blue Laws and New Laws

The funny old laws from my homeland that Lene links to are actually a distraction from the real problem. When Michael Heseltine was President…

Blog

Most Preposterous Claim Ever

This one takes the cake. If there was a Nobel Prize for Absurd Assertions (hmmm, perhaps there is) RFK Jr would win it hands down…

Blog

Where the UK Leads…

It is quite possible the US Congress will follow, on environmental policy at least. The UK's Treasury minister, Alistair Darling, has just announced a raft…

Op-Eds

A Pardoner’s Tale

Are you a carbon-using Christian? Feeling guilty about all that carbon dioxide (CO2) you pump into the atmosphere by such awful things as breathing, heating…

Climate

Blog

Costing the Earth

The Indian government is finding out something that most of us have known for a long time: that measures aimed at dealing with global warming…

Blog

Leo, Waterskis, Shark

Leonardo DiCaprio’s eco-doomfest The 11th Hour has bombed at the box office: His environmental documentary, “The 11th Hour,” has been a total bust at…

Blog

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Britblogger Guido Fawkes delights in blowing up the sacred symbols of establishment. Here he presents data that strongly suggest that mass public transport, symbolized…

Blog

NASA’s Chronic Problems

I strongly agree with Michelle that NASA is a fine example of public choice theory at work. Political pressures impel NASA to sacrifice…

Blog

A New Definition of Quality of Life

The UK Conservative Party has a “Quality of Life” policy group, headed by former Environment Secretary John Selwyn Gummer (whose most distinguished political moment involved…

Blog

Discouraging Data

In this commendably balanced story by The New York Times’ Andy Revkin about the recent NASA temperature data fiasco, a certain someone at NASA…

Op-Eds

Anti-Energy Bill

Speaker Pelosi says that HR 3221, the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security and Consumer Protection Act "puts us on a path towards…

Climate