My closest approach to an "anti-environment" vote, for what it's worth

On Tuesday, the Water District considered what position it should take on H.R. 1837, a piece of ridiculous, environment-destroying legislation that would ruin the Sacramento River Delta ecosystem in favor of Central Valley farmers.  It contradicts the "co-equal goals" that have driven attempts to manage the main water supply for California, that environmental restoration and stable water supply are to be on the same footing.  Our District is fairly uniquely situated because we have a strong environmental commitment and we get a lot of water from the Delta.

The thing is, it's not going anywhere - the legislation was written without any Democratic input and has been sent to die in the Senate.  We could take an oppose position, but that would hurt our ability to work on other legislation with Republicans that is currently in the House.

The staff recommendation was to take a "watch" stance instead of "oppose".  So here's our discussion ("aqua", btw, is the ACWA Association of California Water Agencies and a heavyweight in political discussions of water issues):



(If as often happens the video doesn't work, go here, click on March 27 video, then click on the Item 3.7 on the far left.)

Essence of my position in favor of watch instead of oppose, said a little over 20 minutes in, "My best understanding is that it's symbolic, it's political theater, and I don't want to take a hit on substantive legislation just in order to make a point."

I added a few things to make us ready to oppose it if it turns out to be more than political theater.  My position won 5-2, with the two wanting to take an oppose position.  The chair and I are the known enviros and we both supported the watch position.  The three "old guard" directors split, with one of them taking our side.  An interesting split.

I just was told today that ACWA's advisory committee retained a "watch" position, so we didn't blow it there, so far.

Ideal human population is 100 billion. Off-planet.

My off planet assumptions are for 200-300 years; that the Moon, asteroids, and free-floating colonies have been settled with lots of people; that Martian life discovery protects Mars from colonization; and that Venus hasn't yet been terraformed. And that there's no Singularity - otherwise all bets are off.* There's lots of room out there in space, and changing some of these assumptions make mine a low-end figure.

I think this is the good way to approach it if you're a space nerd who's deeply concerned about population growth and how little any side of the political spectrum has done to address it. We're not anti-human. Live long and prosper! Just as long as it's mostly out there, where you can't take the sky from me.

On planet Earth, we're messing up big time. What the global ideal population would be depends on trading off numbers against resource constraints. If we don't want resource constraints, want everyone to live like kings, and want minimal harm to the environment, then I think we're looking at 100 million people. If you settle for the median American quality of life with some reasonable technological upgrades to reduce environmental impacts, then we're looking at a billion people, one-tenth of what we'll see in 89 years. For larger numbers with modest environmental impacts, the only way I can imagine an ideal life is if people get most of the high quality of life experiences through virtual reality.

It's a rotten shame that the left in the US has mostly forgotten about the population problem due to some overstatements decades ago, and a fear of doing anything that tar them with espousing a policy that's also espoused for racist reasons by racists. The right is even worse, either ignoring the problem for ideological reasons or dog-whistling racist or fear-inducing reasons to control population. All the above gets magnified tenfold when discussing immigration to the US, where we convert the usually-young immigrants into highly impacting Americans, with descendants.

Maybe we can take the latest milestone of 7,000,000,000 people to do something about population, and even about immigration, without playing into the hands of racists.

*I think we'll pass the Singularity point in less than 50 years.

The tipping point range in land use planning is between 1 house per 10 acres and 10 houses per acre

Matt Yglesias has been on a tear for the last year or two on 1. how land use restrictions are NIMBY power grabs that are actually bad for the environment, and 2. conservative libertarians screw up the issue by focusing on land use restrictions in rural areas but not in more developed places.

I think he's got something of a point, but has to be careful not to overplay it. In several places, including my actual work blog, I've written how there are tipping points in the density of development for each environmental value where marginal increases become generally beneficial, and below that point are generally detrimental. See the link for more details, but because the tipping point is a gradual transition in each case, and occurs at a different level of density for each particular environmental value (walkability tipping point is at higher density, farming and open space at lower levels), I think it's better to talk about a tipping point range.

At a residential density of 1 house per 10 acres, I can think of no environmental reason to support a marginal increase in that density. That would reduce the natural habitat value, make farming more difficult, and put more SUVs on the roads that have to drive long distances to get anywhere useful, all for a tiny increase in housing stock. This is where land use restrictions make enormous sense from an environmental viewpoint (and where conservatives put all their efforts to eliminate restrictions). At a density of 10 houses per acre, the reverse is true - the environmental advantages of low density for farming and open space no longer exist and so can't be harmed further, while walkability and public transit use are feasible, and increases in density mean large increases in housing stock.

So I agree with Matt on the high density end but not at the low end, leaving the small matter of the two orders of magnitude in the middle unresolved. I think for most environmental values, though, the tipping point range can be narrowed to fall between 2 residences per acre and 5 residences per acre. Half acre lots have some, modest, value for open space and wildlife. Just as I can think of no environmental reason to slightly increase densities at very low levels, there are few reasons to do so at the half acre lot size or lower. Conversely, increases from 5 residences per acre to something higher can at least add significant housing amounts and get closer to urban densities that reduce driving.

Of course, the useless zone of 2 to 5 residences per acre is what most of suburban construction has created in the last 60 years.

UPDATE: I should add that the policy relevance is primarily regarding rezoning areas that haven't been fully developed, and redevelopment of urban areas. Incremental changes like whether to permit "granny units" on parcels also apply. And as per the comments, all the above is a generalization subject to exceptions. Clustering development can maximize open space, and dense development can be a stupid idea in the wrong place (like a local proposal to put new development in San Francisco Bay).

Volokh Corrections #28 and #29: Adler should study environmental groups, Lindgren should review abstracts more carefully

Several weeks ago I was listening to Environmental Defense Fund's Insider Podcast where they described how their advocacy of "catch-shares" for commercial fisheries (allocating a percentage of fish caught to individual fishermen, instead of a quota) has created an ownership interest among fishermen that supports sustainable fishing. It was also a short time after the election where the California electorate preserved our premier climate change law, ratifying the way for the second-largest cap-and-trade market in the world to begin functioning in 2012.

About the same time, Jonathan Adler is writing about the "decline of the environmental movement" as it supposedly veers off course. Personally, I'm not surprised that environmental concerns played a lesser role than economic ones in the worst economy since the 1930s. Even then, climate legislation got further at the national level than it previously had in 10 years, California and other states move forward, the EPA will take its own actions on climate, and environmental groups continue to innovate. Adler could benefit from undertaking some research on these issues.

And more recently, Jim Lindgren complains about the pernicious effect of long-term unemployment benefits, quoting a study as finding "a 0.4% increase in the unemployment rate because of extending benefits for up to a total of 99 weeks." What he missed in the study is its main conclusion, that:

Analysis of unemployment data suggests that extended unemployment insurance benefits have not been important factors in the increase in the duration of unemployment or in the elevated unemployment rate.

Yes, it also found a 0.4% increase in unemployment from extending benefits, but that is minor in comparison to the real factors driving long-term unemployment. This makes clear the level of hardship Lindgren and friends would impose on people who are jobless and are sincerely looking.

There's also a bias in the study that suggests the 0.4% figure doesn't represent slackers. The study authors can think of two reasons why extending benefit durations could increase unemployment:

First, the extension of UI benefits, which represents an increase in their value, may reduce the intensity with which UI-eligible unemployed individuals search for work. This could occur because the additional UI benefits reduce the net gains from finding a job and also serve as an income cushion that helps households maintain acceptable consumption levels in the face of unemployment shocks (Chetty 2008). Alternatively, the measured unemployment rate may be artificially inflated because some individuals who are not actively searching for work or who are unwilling to take available jobs are identifying themselves as active searchers in order to receive UI benefits.

A third possibility is the rate is artificially inflated because people who would've given up in the absence of UI benefits accept the condition placed on receiving benefits, that they seek actively seek work and would accept jobs. They're not liars, and no one is being harmed by extending their benefits.

So just like Adler, Lindgren might benefit from studying the subject he's writing about more closely.

And the voting starts

So here's my video campaign statement, courtesy of the free services provided by the Midpeninsula Community Media Center, which will be showing candidate videos on their channels:

I should've talked a little faster I think, but it wasn't too bad for a 20 minute session and my first use of a Teleprompter. My opponent apparently decided to skip doing it.

Nothing about climate change in there, but I've said quite a bit elsewhere.

In answer to the most common question - how's the campaign going? - I can't really tell for sure. The people I talk to are enthusiastic supporters but there's an obvious selection effect. I've done very well with endorsements. We've got people walking precincts too (no sign of my opponent doing the same), and this is a Democratic Party-favoring area. On the other hand, my opponent's got decent name recognition as a Council member of one of the four biggest towns in the district.

So we'll just keep pushing, and we'll get the answer in less than a month.

Spilling on the BP oil spill

Random comments:

*Many people might not realize that in hazardous businesses, it usually doesn't even matter if the entity causing the accident was negligent - instead, strict liability applies to require responsibility of anyone who chooses to engage in the type of action where safety may be impossible to guarantee.  Oil companies use their political power to mess up the law, however.

*Lifting the $75m liability cap needs to happen ASAP.  While I think lifting the cap will probably avoid restrictions on ex post facto laws, I'm not 100% convinced.  However, I'm pretty close to 100% convinced that any oil damage occurring after the cap is lifted, from either new oil being emitted or from the spread of existing spilled oil, will be subject to the new law and different cap.  (Worth noting the cap only applies to regular negligence, not gross negligence, and I think there's a pretty good argument for gross negligence here.)

*Anyone who thinks there should be a new cap at $10b is saying the public should be held responsible for damage the spiller causes to the environment that exceeds the cap.

*Contrary to William, I think the pressure not to distribute dividends is legit when that money might be needed to fix the environment and compensate the people who've been wronged.  My suggestion - put the money in escrow to be released with a later dividend if it's not needed.  The stock price should then adjust to reflect the probability that BP won't need to dip into the dividend escrow to pay off its liabilities.

*It's a tougher argument, but also contrary to William, I think there's a legitimate claim that BP should pay for some or all of the costs of the drilling moratorium.  The argument is strongest for costs/lost wages at rigs run by the companies involved in causing the current spill.  The current disaster also makes the potential consequences of a similar disaster elsewhere so much worse that there's a decent argument that the current disaster truly caused the need for a moratorium.  Finally, an ethical argument (not really a legal one, though) - the weak regulations are a result of BP's lobbying, in part, so it doesn't have much cause to say it shouldn't have to pay for a moratorium while the weak regulations are fixed.

*Pretty telling that a developing nation like Brazil required safeguards that the US considered optional.  Pretty strong case demonstrating regulatory capture in the US.

*Without any sophisticated analysis to back it up, I think two years in is the point at which a new administration bears more responsibility for institutional failure than the old one does.  So I still award Bush more blame than Obama for the terrible regulation.  I suppose this doesn't quite fit with how I view responsibility for 9-11, but I'm willing to give some blame in that case to Clinton, while awarding special and majority discredit to Bush for not reacting to obvious warning signs.

Keep the homophobic climate weirdo on the oil spill team

A bozo physicist, Jonathan Katz, who apparently thinks creatively but has zero quality control, has been kicked off one of the oil spill teams because he is/was homophobic and believes some of the nonsense he reads on climate denialist websites like Greenland "formerly" being green in medieval times.

I don't care, as long as he's not involved in anything dealing with homosexuality (or being in charge of anybody, including students) or with climate change. Just let him come up with some ideas to control the oil spill and let other people be in charge of figuring out whether they're any good.

His nonsense on climate hardly needs to be dealt with, except for psychological analyses. I'm guessing he's one of those political conservatives who can't deny physics, so he just accepts what he maximally can accept without having to change his policy positions, and skates over the rest.

On homophobia, he says "The human body was not designed to share hypodermic needles, it was not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts." The guy must be outraged by bonobos, but I don't see much difference between their design and ours that makes promiscuity and homosexuality okay for them and problematic for us. Generally he seems like a cranky old man who's used to saying whatever he wants to say.

I think he very well may not be qualified to grade and mentor students, many of whom are gay, but he should be able to serve on the spill team.

One-way evolutionary arms race solves invasive species problems, but it's slow

An interesting post by biology blogger Biotunes about predation of native species on problematic, invasive species raised some ideas in my mind as to how the invasive species eventually come under control. Obviously the current levels of predation isn't an efficient control, or the invasive species wouldn't be problematic - it would be extinct or just occupy a small niche in the ecosystem.

Over time, however, there should be evolutionary pressure on predators to prey more efficiently on invasives, while the invasives will not adapt in response. So long as the predators are inefficient, the evolutionary pressure on invasives should be to outcompete within its own species, by reproducing more and reproducing more quickly. A mutation that adapts to predators is unlikely to spread because it will likely impose a cost on reproduction (spend more time hiding and less time feeding, say) that exceeds the benefits of escaping not-very-efficient predation. The effect is a one-way evolutionary arms race.

Only when the predators become efficient at controlling the invasive population, will the invasive start adapting in response, and at that point the invasives won't be that much of an environmental problem.

So, great. Next question is how long does this all take? We've had invasive plants in the Americas for hundreds of years, and invasive animals for a century or more. I'm no expert on these things, but I do read about them and I've not heard of any invasive gradually receding to become a background species. The few that have disappeared or become minor have done so when we've imported biological controls or have adopted scorched-earth campaigns to get rid of the species.

If on a scale of a century or more, very few or no invasives have been brought to heel by the one-way evolutionary arms race, then the time-scale for this to work on most invasives has to be much longer, maybe many thousands of years. This long-term solution helps us understand how nature handles the rare, natural introduction of a new, invasive species. Considering everything else we're doing to screw up our ecology right now, however, the natural solution isn't something we can rely on as a substitute for our own action to deal with the problem we've created.

Reintroducing the Atlantic Gray Whale

One of the disadvantages of the Internet is it destroys any pretensions I have to originality. I've thought for a while that it would be an amazing feat to reintroduce the Atlantic gray whale to the wild. Of course, one complication arises from the Atlantic whale's extinction. The easy solution is to take some of the closely related and now-abundant Pacific gray whales and bring them over.

Turns out that my original idea has been developed much more extensively by other people. Still it would be interesting. I've followed the reintroductions of condors and wolves closely here in the US, and beavers were just reintroduced to Scotland after a longer absence than gray whales from the Atlantic. Sometimes reintroductions don't work well (Mexican wolf, lynx in Colorado), but if you don't try....

There's also the issue that these would still be Pacific grays, and so not exactly the natural species for the habitat. On the other hand, that niche in the Atlantic Ocean isn't being occupied right now, which also isn't natural. Bringing in the Pacific grays seems closer to natural than the present situation. And it would be cool.

Bonus unrelated blogging: Obama reiterates his promise to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. My prediction from months ago that I thought I blogged about but can't find anywhere, is that he'd put off the repeal until 2010 and then use it to run against Congressional Republicans as bigoted and soft on defense. I'll bet he'll put off repealing the more popular Defense of Marriage Act until 2011.

Hiking the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island

My wife and I just returned from an 8-day backpacking trip on Vancouver Island's West Coast Trail, sometimes considered as one of the best backpacking trails in the world. That may be true, but whether it's the most enjoyable depends on weather, tides, and your physical fitness. Don't count on ordinary good fitness to get you through this trail with no problems. The first half of our trip rained crazily, and going up steep, mud covered hillsides was incredible slow going.

We would have quit at the half-way point where you can escape, but the weather then turned great. If you can go when tides are extra low during the time of day you're hiking, then a flat sandstone shelf emerges from the water and provides easy hiking after a few hours drying (we got only a taste of that).

Still, the rain forest life was amazing. Every tree covered in moss, and often with ferns and huckleberries growing out of any tiny crook. It rivals (or according to wiki, exceeds) the amount of life I've seen in tropical rain forests.

If you go, get the tides right and go in July or August, probably. Or be in incredible shape. And bring one or preferably two hiking poles, and a backpack cover to protect your pack.

I'm happy to talk to anyone who's interested in more info.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention our visit to a British Columbia parliament session in Victoria, which was memorable. Same left-right issues, but in a different and more raucous context.

Thoughts on our buying a condo

*Alan Greenspan manipulated credit markets not to help the economy but to make more people homeowners and supporters of his personal ideology, capitalism. In a sense, it's worked on me - it's now a lot harder for me to support ending the regressive and environmentally destructive mortgage tax deduction. I'd still support a gradual phaseout though. Otherwise, though, I don't feel any more inclined to Greenspan's stupidity than I did before.

*There's a large tax credit for first-time home buyers that we'll get. Thanks, taxpayers! While we're not wealthy, I think there could be better uses of the money. Along the lines of Jonathan Zasloff's consideration of whether straight supporters of gay marriage shouldn't be married until everyone can, I suppose we could refuse the tax credit. As with marriage, I don't think that's going to happen. Maybe we should up our donations some, though.

*Fannie Mae charges a fee of 0.75% of the mortgage if you're buying a condo instead of a house, waived only if your downpayment is 25% instead of 20%. While I'm sure they have their financial reasons, it's a disincentive to smart growth.

*I believe increased residential mobility is environmentally beneficial, as in several years ago when I moved to cut my work commute to one-tenth the time. On the other hand, I've just been reminded what a complete time-wasting pain in the neck it is to move, one that gets worse as you get older and hoard more stuff. I'm not planning to move soon.

*We decided to clean our old apartment ourselves rather than spend several hundred dollars. Over forty hours work later, I'm not sure that was a great idea. Still can't figure out how it could take so long.

BICEP and USCAP mean it's time to Green the Chamber of Commerce

BICEP is a new business affiliation of progressive companies that's calling for quick action on climate change. USCAP is an even bigger coalition of companies and environmental groups, including some major power users, that calls for climate legislation (although not to the same urgent level as BICEP).

And then there's the US Chamber of Commerce, which has done all it can for years to stop attempts to control greenhouse gas emissions. The inmates are in control, and I've seen this as well on the local environmental level here in the Bay Area, where city Chambers take destructive environmental stances that have little or nothing to do with business interests.

But not always. The Chambers aren't monolithic entities, and individual ones can take different stances. The Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce has a strong Environmental Committee organized by a friend of mine, Alex Kennett. That Chamber organizes the city's Earth Day celebration and the environmental committee promotes green businesses. Not coincidentally, the Morgan Hill Chamber has abstained from the destructive environmental stances taken by other Chambers.

There is a real opportunity for growing environmental businesses to change the destructive policies of the Chambers. Especially here in Silicon Valley, an epicenter of renewable energy, our Chambers should be taking pro-environment stances. By pushing local Chambers in the right direction, environmentalists could start affecting the state and national levels as well. I've thought for a long time that this is something some major environmental groups and foundations should be working on changing. Time to get going.

California voters, please vote no on Prop 98 and yes on 99

The stupidity is back with us again. Feigning anger over the mostly-nonexistent threat of government agencies forcing people to sell their property so the agencies can resell the property to business interests, the property-rights fanatics have again given us an initiative that goes much further and restricts land-use regulation designed to protect the environment.

Proposition 98 specifically defines as a prohibited taking for private use, any regulation "in order to transfer an economic benefit to one or more private persons at the expense of the private owner" (text at bottom of first page). While this is so poorly written that we can hope the courts will gut it, we can't count on that. Any good land-use regulation will provide some economic benefit. Tightening noise restrictions in a mixed industrial/residential area will increase residential property values, for example. Had the proponents written it to say it prohibited regulations with a primary effect or intent of transferring an economic benefit, they would have avoided this problem. I think the failure to write it this way is intentional. I'll also note some incredibly disingenous discussion at the Volokh website that completely ignores this issue.

Other reasons to vote against 98 and for 99 are here. Proposition 99 takes a much more limited approach to dealing with this non-problem; passing 99 with more votes would invalidate 98 and hopefully stop future versions of 98 (which itself is a rehashed version of an initiative that failed in 2006).

Finally, my day job for the last five years involves monitoring land use in Santa Clara County, a 700,000 acre county with 1.6 million people. I don't recall any eminent domain proceedings since I started the job. Where is the problem? I may have missed some proceedings, somewhere, but I'll be even more surprised if they go beyond the standard road-widening issue that would not be affected by Proposition 98. This is just a Trojan Horse scam.

Review: The World Without Us

My very-informative reaction to The World Without Us: ehh. My apologies to Juniper Pearl if she's still coming around here, but I feel the same way about this book as I did with Malcolm Gladwell's Blink - a decent magazine article has been overstretched to book length.

I've always thought it would be kind of cool to watch nature reconquer our civilized spaces, and there's a fun animation showing this at the book's website, but after a while the fascination with the idea fades away. And the book uses that idea mostly to show how badly we've screwed up the planet, which I guess is okay but depressing.

The book isn't bad. The part about the Korean Demilitarized Zone was interesting, as well as the potential danger from microparticles of plastic to ocean life. I think he's got a bit of a Jared Diamond problem though of covering too many subject areas to be completely accurate, without Diamond's high ratio of interesting ideas that makes up for occasional errors.

Worth skimming, I think, but I can't tell people to rush out to get it.

Could be the Clean Energy 1.0 Bubble Video

Crooked Timber has a great clip, the Bubble 2.0 Music Video. I'm not involved at all with the tech industry, but just living here in Silicon Valley makes it easy to pick up the references. The current bubble is starting to feel like the last one from ten years ago. Facebook has nearly the same capitalization value as Ford - that seems a little frothy.

And while I'm glad the industry is so into clean energy as well, I suspect there's some bubbling on that front too. Hope I'm wrong.

My face on radio

Okay, not my face but my voice - Bay Area public radio station KQED released a two-minute commentary by yours truly yesterday on the flawed environmental review process in San Jose, where developers create the initial drafts of environmental documents that are supposed to neutrally evaluate the impacts of the developer proposals. More of a work-related thing for me than a Backseat Driving thing, but I'm posting it anyway. The link's here.

In other shocking news, the Volokhs have two non-wrong environmental posts in sequence. One on geo-engineering being worth a look (true, but worth nothing more than that right now), and another on the many problems of corn-based ethanol.

The exception versus the rule on meat eating and other stuff

An email conversation I had with correspondent Kathy S. somewhat parallels the enviro blogosphere discussion of PETA's assertion "you just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist".*

Kathy noted how little emphasis the enviro groups place on eating less meat, while I mentioned that sometimes meat can be more environmental. Here in the SF Bay Area, eating locally-raised grass-fed beef, especially if the cattle isn't finished on grain, is more environmental than eating imported tofu.

Still, my response reminded me of a criticism someone posted on the John Edwards blog to my idea that monster mansions should lose the home mortgage tax deduction. The counter-argument ran that some large houses could be more environmentally-sound than smaller ones. Personally, I'm unimpressed with the claim that a generally-good rule should be stopped because in rare exceptions it will be counterproductive. Same holds true about meat.

On the other hand, there's a difference between a general rule and a universal rule. Generally, vegetarianism is better than meat-eating. Transforming that into a universal claim like PETA did is illogical. A better argument is to avoid factory-farmed meat, and choose either veggies or locally-raised animals.**


*I expect the PETA statement will be followed by the nuclear industry's assertion that you can't be an environmentalist and oppose nuclear power).

**Unlike cattle and buffalo, chicken and pigs can't be raised on grass. However, it just takes 2 pounds of feed to make one pound of chicken (including the inedible parts), so the loss ratio isn't all that bad, and free-range chickens live partially off the land.

With immigration-control friends like these....

...on this NPR program, people like me who favor a balance between immigration and emigration don't have a chance of finding a good outcome. Racists on the right, ideologically-blinded people on the left, and centrists enjoying the ride of cheap labor, combine for a bad policy mix.

I had thought FAIR was in the realm of reasonable politics, but if they're associating with racists then they're worse than useless.