Simple ideas work best
Sometimes the simplest ideas work the best especially when it comes to environmental policy. Today the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England launches its Stop the Drop campaign in a bid to raise awareness of the impact of litter and fly-tipping. And Government minister Joan Ruddock is quoted in today’s Times saying that she is receptive to the idea of restoring compulsory deposits on plastic drinks bottles and aluminium containers as a way of incentivising people to take bottle back for recycling and reducing the volumes heading for landfill. It has worked in the past - ask the good people of Oregon. What is stopping the government? Get on with it!
Bio-fuel curse and cure
Today marks the introduction of the new EU Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation and there has been a huge amount of coverage about the economic and environmental impact of the switch towards biofuel production.
The Big Question looks at carbon trading
Plenty of environmental economics in today’s edition of the Independent. The regular Big Question feature looks at the costs and benefits of carbon trading in the wake of the government’s support for fresh investment in coal fired power stations. Read The Big Question: What is carbon trading, and will it help in the battle against climate change?
Their editorial lays into Chancellor Alastair Darling for being ready to sacrifice environmental targets because of a faltering economy.
“Environmental levies need two key features. The first is that they be substantial enough to change behaviour. The second, and no less important, is that the proceeds are seen to be channelled into green schemes, or to provide tax breaks for those who make more environmentally friendly choice.”
Read: Make the polluters pay, and give the others a break
Finally there is a feature on how the effects of climate change tend to hit disproportionately the poorest communities around the world - the costs of adapting to climate change are enormous and some regions and communities are least able to cope.
More environmental news and features in the Independent are available here
Russia’s new road to economic growth
There is a great macroeconomics feature in the Times today about a massive road building programme being launched by the Russian government. I was watching The Long Way Round the other week and one of the most memorable sections is when Charlie and Ewan attempt to journey through the Road of Bones, perhaps one of the least hospitable and most dangerous stretches of roadway in the world. The Times reports that
“Russian roads are in a parlous state. The Soviet Union invested much more money into the nation’s railways and the country still lacks motorways between big cities - between Moscow and St Petersburg, for example - or to nearby European capitals, such as Minsk. In rural areas, many villages have little more than dirt tracks. The bad roads cost the economy an estimated 10 per cent of GDP, according to VTB Europe, the investment bank. It also costs lives: 34,000 people a year die on the roads in Russia, ten times more than in the UK. The Kremlin wants to start one of the most ambitious roadbuilding programmes ever, building 50,000km of roads in the next six years, at a cost of £2 million per kilometre. The plan includes tunnels, bridges and motorways between big cities and to borders with neighbouring countries.”
The article can be used to illustrate many economic issues
The multiplier effects of the road building programme
Applying some of the principles of cost-benefit analysis
Road building and externalities - including the environmental costs and benefits
The importance of infrastructure in driving economic growth
How Russia is planning to finance this programme - the Russian government is looking for half of the money to come from the private sector
What this road building programme might do to the prices of raw materials and to wages in the Russian construction sector
How might British firms be able to benefit from the huge road building investment programme?
Money Programme: Green Fuel Gamble
The Money Programme this week covers the controversial issue of bio-fuel subsidies and the environmental costs and benefits.
“Biofuels are being touted by governments, oil companies and car manufacturers as a green solution to our fuel problems. In two years five per cent of all the fuel sold in the UK will be Biofuel. But critics say it’s actually environmentally damaging and growing crops like corn and sugar cane for fuel diverts land from food production. The Money Programme’s Libby Potter meets the businesses and consumers who have invested in the so called green fuel and investigates what’s at stake in the battle for a greener future.”
One for the DVD recorder?
The Economics of Food Waste
There was a terrific programme on the economics of food waste on BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme this lunchtime. “The Food Programme investigates the food waste created by restaurants, food manufacturers, supermarkets and airline caterers.” Details of the programme are available here.
If we believe them, the scale of the mountain of uneaten food is vast and a stunning waste of scarce economic resources. Food waste comes from household bins, supermarkets, pubs, restaurants, airline caterers and other commercial food producers. From printing errors on packaging to errors on sell by dates, from food that is delayed in transit for just a few days to the dumping of wasted products from supermarkets that have failed to meet their sales targets, we are serial disposers of millions of tonnes of food waste. How can we move towards a more sustainable future for our food industry? The methane gas from food waste accumulating in landfill sites is a significant and growing contributor to global warming. The programme offers rays of hope - there is money to be made from kitchen scraps that can be collected and converted into electricity and compost - but the scale of this is minute at present. A cultural change is needed - not least a change of behaviour by consumers and a move away from knee-jerk marketing from food retailers which take them away from longer term planning about how much food they need.
Growing food waste mountain blamed on get-one-free offers
