Read on, only if you believe in considering data.
Category Archives: environment
Record Year-to-Date Acres Burned
Acres burned already exceeds the comparable figure for 2006, the previous record year.
Figure 1: Acres burned to August 22 (blue bar), from August 22 to September 25 (red bar) and to year-end (green bar). Source: NIFC1, NFIC2, author’s calculations.
Using the same regression (log acres on log acres ytd) used in this post, my estimate of acres burned has risen from 9.62 million to 9.76 million.
This in turn raises the estimated total expenditures from $2.27 billion to $2.29 billion.
Figure 2: Acres burned (blue, left scale) and total Federal firefighting expenditure in dollars (pink, right scale) predicted 2015 (pink triangle). Source: NIFC1, NFIC2, and author’s calculations.
I’ve only tabulated direct Federal fiscal costs; here is an article on part of the human toll. Further note that these costs do not include state level costs. Cal Fire’s total budget for the current fiscal year is about $390 million.[1]
Katrina Plus Ten
Let hope our responses to the next ones are better than “Heckuva job, Brownie”.
Projecting 2015 Acres Burned and Firefighting Expenditures
Blue Creek fire, close to Walla Walla, WA. Photo: Greg Lehman, AP. Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Reader CoRev asserts wildfire intensity has not been severe of late. I’ll just graph some data to bring reality to the interested.
Remember: “Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”
So said Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. Pay no heed to the massive wildfires. And temperature readings.
Here is a map of current fires in the US (see here for Canada):
Source: NOAA.
Guest Contribution: “Gas Taxes and Oil Subsidies: Time for Reform”
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University, and former Member of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1997-99. A shorter version was published at Project Syndicate.
NOAA: “No Slowdown in Global Warming”
From NOAA:
“Adding in the last two years of global surface temperature data and other improvements in the quality of the observed record provide evidence that contradict the notion of a hiatus in recent global warming trends,” said Thomas R. Karl, L.H.D., Director, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “Our new analysis suggests that the apparent hiatus may have been largely the result of limitations in past datasets, and that the rate of warming over the first 15 years of this century has, in fact, been as fast or faster than that seen over the last half of the 20th century.”
Orwell on Webster Street*
In Madison, WI, that is.
In response to my post on the effort to eliminate the Bureau of Science Services in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, reader Ed Hanson rises to the defense of the effort.
No Time for Scientists – Wisconsin Edition
With apologies to Mac Hyman …and Andy Griffith
Leaders at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are proposing elimination of the Bureau of Science Services within the department.
Keystone XL Employment Effects
[Updated 2/5]
They’re small. Really small. From the Congressional Research Service (Jan. 5, 2015):
Because job projections, in particular, involve numerous assumptions and estimates, the State Department’s job estimates for Keystone XL have been a source of disagreement. One challenge to State’s analysis is that different definitions (e.g., for temporary jobs) and interpretations can lead to different numerical estimates and “fundamental confusion” about the Final EIS numbers. Consequently, it may be difficult to determine what overall economic and employment impacts may ultimately be attributable to the Keystone XL pipeline or to the various alternative transport scenarios if the pipeline is not constructed.