Recent Posts

• Air Quality and Environmental Justice Posted 3 days ago
  Important new study out of the U of M on racial disparities nationwide in levels of air pollution.  This study's focus is apparently on nitrogen dioxide, but I suspect similar results would emerge if the study included air pollutants like ground-level ozone and fine particulates, or if it used other indicators of socioeconomic status in addition to race.  To the Administration's credit, there is a growing focus in the agencies on pollution disparities and environmental justice, but there is obviously a lot of work to be done.
• Minnesota groundwater shortage Posted 6 days ago
  Minnesota has operated on the assumption that its clean water supplies are virtually unlimited.  Time to get over that.  Minnesota is now facing water shortages in several areas, our current system of water appropriation permits is not up to the challenge, and major reforms are going to be critical.  This will be extremely difficult, because some requests to pump water are going to have to be denied, and the price of water is almost certainly going to have to rise.  Check out MPR's series on the issues; Also take a look at Martin Moylan's report today on entrepreneurs getting ready ...
• Cost of carbon emissions Posted 6 days ago
  Interesting article in Nature this past week on calculating the social cost of carbon emissions, and using those numbers to make policy and business decisions.  The article concludes that the usual numbers--$35-40/ton--are too low because they fail to take many factors into account.   MCEA petitioned the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) last winter to update Minnesota's social cost figures for carbon and other major air pollutants.  The PUC was reluctant, but finally agreed with MCEA's position and now we are in the early stages of that process.  Just to give some perspective, Minnesota's current social cost figures for carbon are ...