jamesz

National chooses not to rule ‘by decree’

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It looks like National has decided not to continue with the previous government’s plans to introduce a standard for lightbulb efficiency. They say

We want to encourage people to [switch], we think there may be benefits for them to do it, but it should be a choice they make as consumers.

It’s a good point: efficient CFL bulbs are tough to dim, take time to reach full brightness and don’t bring out the sparkle in chandeliers, apparently. So why would we want to force everyone to use them when they’re clearly not suited to some applications? Of course, if people did use them in their homes and offices, where they are suitable, it would be great for reducing our national power consumption. Read more

jamesz

Is our economy killing the planet?

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I’ve recently been browsing old magazines and my attention was grabbed by a feature in the October 18 edition of NewScientist. In it they collate a series of articles under the heading ‘Why the economy is killing the planet and what we can do about it’. At first I was disappointed that a publication puporting to be scientific in nature was resorting to scare journalism and economics bashing; however, there are a number of interesting ideas in the articles that bear discussion. Read more

goonix

Metering and the market for water

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The DomPost contained an article on the potential for metering Wellington’s water supply. The question is asked: should Wellingtonians pay for their water? This issue is a hot topic, having been discussed at Kiwiblog, Infometrics and TVHE earlier this year.

Historically, water has been provided for by the various Wellington councils out of rates. Water is not currently metered, which implies that regardless of how much water each household takes, their rates do not vary. This arrangement has led many to believe water is in some way ‘free’, as they are not forced to pay for their specific usage and the cost is embodied in rates which cover many council services across many households. With water use of 400 litres per person per day in Wellington, relative to the national average of 160 litres, it appears water users here are not internalising the cost of their water usage.

Current arrangements do not allow for the pricing of scarcity. Read more

Matt Nolan

British use the environment to promote protectionism

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So the British are increasing the international departure tax, and stating that it is an “externality tax”.  What spectacularly wrong-headed logic.

The externality they are talking about is “carbon emissions” – now as long as they tax the fuel that airlines use the externality is accounted for, as the carbon emissions stem from fuel use.  Adding a tax on top of an efficient externality tax is not efficient.

The real reason the British government is doing this is straight out protectionism – they believe that the impact on “outflows” from Britain will exceed the impact on tourist “inflows”, a factor that would improve net exports and help to “protect” the retail industry in Britain.  Beyond this, the increase in tax is also a simple tax grab – one that taxes tourist industries the rest of the world over.

No wonder we in New Zealand are unhappy (*, *)

jamesz

Happy, happy people!

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Yay, we’re the 15th happiest country in the world! Unsurprisingly, while money makes us happy, it doesn’t really matter once you earn over 15,000 USD/capita. What really matters is trust, tolerance and religion, apparently. Being religious makes you seven percentage points happier on average, which probably explains Saudi Arabia’s unusual happiness in the face of such intolerance.

And now for the big picture(s)! Read more

Matt Nolan

The delay of the ETS and forestry

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One thing that does upset me about the constant delays to the emissions trading scheme is the impact it has on the poor old forestry industry.

Forestry has struggled from high shipping costs, strong competition from places like Russia which has driven down prices, a large decrease in demand as building activity collapsed (especially in the US), and uncertainty surrounding the ETS.

Finally the government was clear – the ETS will be introduced and if you cut down trees that were planted before 1990 you owe a liability.  As a result, people cut them down before it was introduced – not getting the best price or having to store the timber.  Furthermore, companies started to look at planting trees – as a way of making some money off marginal land.

Now the whole scheme is up in the air – so forestry has to put up with more uncertainty, and people that have acted in the belief that the ETS would occur have been screwed over.