Environment
Environment
How Wal-Mart’s Environmental Conservation Can Top Government Regulation
In January, H. Lee Scott Jr., chief executive of Wal-Mart, announced that the company would begin working on its second wave of environmental conservation initiatives. The move follows Wal-Mart’s 2005 plans to create less waste, reduce energy use at stores, and sell more environmentally friendly products, including organic produce. The ...
Agriculture
Bad Biofuel Policy Boosts Asian Inflation
Asia Sentinel (Hong Kong), 19 February 2008 The US decision to divert food crops for motor-fuel is proving a costly mistake – especially for Asia. What has long been predicted – that the US decision to push the use of corn to make biofuel would be a costly mistake – ...
Agriculture
Ethanol craze boosts food prices, world hunger
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA), February 15, 2008 Press Dakotan, February 15, 2008 Billings Gazette (MT), February 12, 2008 Investor’s Business Daily, February 11, 2008 WASHINGTON – The red-hot congressional love affair with the alternative fuel ethanol is starting to leave many supermarket customers feeling mighty blue these days as they pay ...
Agriculture
I’m fat, you’re fat and your kids probably are, too
If you want the government, federal, state and local, to tell you what you can and cannot eat, please raise your hand. Apparently no one does except the various politicians who think they were elected to determine what you should eat and drink. Let’s get something straight, however. I’m fat. ...
Energy
Whose Economy?
Unable to extend tax breaks as part of the energy bill signed into law just two months ago, some are trying to attach them to the emergency economic stimulus package. As the package emerged this week from the Senate Finance Committee, among the items added was a string of energy ...
Blackouts
Big Brother Wants Your Thermostat
The California Energy Commission recently considered a proposal to take control of home thermostats, a move that drew national attention and public protests. The CEC has now backed off,-but the story remains instructive for California consumers and policy makers alike. Under the original proposal, part of a 236-page revision to ...
Climate Change
Climate Change Captives?
Organizers said the goal of the event, dubbed “Focus the Nation,” was to move past preaching to the green choir, to reach a captive audience of students in many fields who might not otherwise tune in to climate change issues.” The Lewis & Clark College economics professor behind the day’s ...
Business & Economics
Impact – January 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – January 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions.
Agriculture
No need for hormone labels
SAN FRANCISCO — After 14 years of widespread use, a safe and proven technology for increasing the availability of low-cost dairy products could disappear if government regulators place fears and rumors above sound science. The technology at issue is recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST), a drug designed to increase milk production ...
Agriculture
Different Shades of Green
Biofuels are made from either grain, sugar or vegetable oils–all important food products. There is increasing competition for feedstocks (food stocks?) between eating and energy. Rising prices for vegetable oil are forcing the world’s poor to ration every drop, or go without. Bakeries in the United States are being squeezed ...
How Wal-Mart’s Environmental Conservation Can Top Government Regulation
In January, H. Lee Scott Jr., chief executive of Wal-Mart, announced that the company would begin working on its second wave of environmental conservation initiatives. The move follows Wal-Mart’s 2005 plans to create less waste, reduce energy use at stores, and sell more environmentally friendly products, including organic produce. The ...
Bad Biofuel Policy Boosts Asian Inflation
Asia Sentinel (Hong Kong), 19 February 2008 The US decision to divert food crops for motor-fuel is proving a costly mistake – especially for Asia. What has long been predicted – that the US decision to push the use of corn to make biofuel would be a costly mistake – ...
Ethanol craze boosts food prices, world hunger
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA), February 15, 2008 Press Dakotan, February 15, 2008 Billings Gazette (MT), February 12, 2008 Investor’s Business Daily, February 11, 2008 WASHINGTON – The red-hot congressional love affair with the alternative fuel ethanol is starting to leave many supermarket customers feeling mighty blue these days as they pay ...
I’m fat, you’re fat and your kids probably are, too
If you want the government, federal, state and local, to tell you what you can and cannot eat, please raise your hand. Apparently no one does except the various politicians who think they were elected to determine what you should eat and drink. Let’s get something straight, however. I’m fat. ...
Whose Economy?
Unable to extend tax breaks as part of the energy bill signed into law just two months ago, some are trying to attach them to the emergency economic stimulus package. As the package emerged this week from the Senate Finance Committee, among the items added was a string of energy ...
Big Brother Wants Your Thermostat
The California Energy Commission recently considered a proposal to take control of home thermostats, a move that drew national attention and public protests. The CEC has now backed off,-but the story remains instructive for California consumers and policy makers alike. Under the original proposal, part of a 236-page revision to ...
Climate Change Captives?
Organizers said the goal of the event, dubbed “Focus the Nation,” was to move past preaching to the green choir, to reach a captive audience of students in many fields who might not otherwise tune in to climate change issues.” The Lewis & Clark College economics professor behind the day’s ...
Impact – January 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – January 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions.
No need for hormone labels
SAN FRANCISCO — After 14 years of widespread use, a safe and proven technology for increasing the availability of low-cost dairy products could disappear if government regulators place fears and rumors above sound science. The technology at issue is recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST), a drug designed to increase milk production ...
Different Shades of Green
Biofuels are made from either grain, sugar or vegetable oils–all important food products. There is increasing competition for feedstocks (food stocks?) between eating and energy. Rising prices for vegetable oil are forcing the world’s poor to ration every drop, or go without. Bakeries in the United States are being squeezed ...
