Daily Score Blog

It passes! 

Shortly before 7:30 p.m., the New York City Council approved a measure urging state lawmakers to vote in favor of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal. The vote was 30 to 20, with one member absent.

Assuming that the state legislature approves the move, New York will be the first American metropolis to implement this sort of charge.  But it's not an untested idea.  In fact, congestion charges have been used for decades in Singapore, and are becoming increasingly common in cities across Europe. The council-approved plan will charge drivers $8 to cross into Manhattan south of 60th Street -- roughly the southern end of Central Park -- with the goal of easing congestion, or at least ensuring that drivers on the hypercongested downtown street grid start to pay their own way.

Supporters were quick to praise the council vote:

Less traffic, better transit, cleaner air, good jobs - millions of New Yorkers who share these goals can feel proud that the City Council listened to the facts and today voted ‘yes’ for congestion pricing to put New York on track to this better, healthier, more livable future.

Let's hope they're right.  Either way, though, it'll be very interesting to see what comes of this.  If it's successful, will the idea spread?  Or will it just become yet another curiosity of the Big Apple?

Ruh roh.  Looks like the Northwest states -- particularly Washington -- are seeing a substantial boost in the number of people signed up for food stamps.  In fact, comparing 2006 figures with year-end data for 2007, Washington's jump in food stamp utilization was the largest in the country: an increase of more than 25 percent in a single year!!

Typically, rising food stamp enrollment is a clear sign of a slowing economy.  But Washington's worst-in-nation food stamp surge likely had another cause:  the flooding in west-central Washington late last fall that put many folks in shelters, and still more in dire financial straits. 

So the New York Times calls Washington's food stamp increase a "temporary increase in response to [a] natural disaster." Fair enough. 

Still, I think it's a mistake to downplay the significance of Washington's food stamp bounce.  First off:  some of that increase probably is due to a faltering economy.  Food stamp enrollment is up nationwide, as well as in neighboring states, so it's not too much of a stretch to think that Washington's economy stumbled as well.

And second:  natural disasters aren't necessarily all that "natural" anymore.  In some ways, they may be an inherent symptom of the global economy, rather than an unpredictable outside force. Climate change has increased weather variability; and we've done precious little to insulate ordinary folks from the risk of extreme weather.   The economic effects of natural disasters, while unpredictable, are every bit as real as the effects of a slowing economy.  Perhaps moreso, since they can hit so suddenly and so intensely, particularly for folks with thin financial cushions.  So, in a way, there's no reason to downplay natural disasters as "outside" the economy.  It's become an artificial distinction; we have to start treating the economic costs of natural disasters as an expected -- even inevitable -- consequence of the economic choices we've made.

Which raises another point.  Too often, public policy debates center on the cost of stopping climate change.  But this sort of news turns the tables:  the costs of not stopping climate change -- i.e., of letting climate-warming gases continue to flood the atmosphere -- will likely pose a much greater risk to wealth and wellbeing than the cost of setting some responsible limits.

The Taku River valley is one of BC’s crown jewels. It’s 4.5 million acres of forest tucked up in the northwest corner of the province. It’s also the home of the Taku Tlingit nation, who have a vision of how to manage the land for future generations. Now they’re sitting down with the province to hammer out a plan. The Prince Rupert Daily News has the story.

Like Clayoquot Sound and the Great Bear Rainforest, the Taku project is the result of different people sitting down and working together on a solution. BC is a global leader in conservation success stories. And the key is collaboration among native people, government officials, conservationists, and businessmen. That ain’t easy. 

Check out the Taku Tlingit’s land-use vision here (PDF). And a fantastic map of the conservation plan here (PDF). The Taku Tlingit worked with Round River Conservation Studies to create the report. (Round River also drafted the conservation plan for the Great Bear Rainforest several years ago.)

Take a look:  somebody has ranked hybrid cars, based on how much money they save you.  Your best hybrid buys, in order, are...drumroll please...

1. The Toyota Prius,
   
2. The Saturn Vue, and
   
3. The Honda Civic.

Unfortunately, the ranking methods aren't completely spelled out. But as far as I can tell, the author compares the price difference between a hybrid car and its non-hybrid mate, and compares the extra cost of the hybrid engine with the money drivers save on fuel.  These 3 come up as the best hybrid buys.

Of course, the Prius (unlike most other cars of its ilk) was built as a hybrid from the ground up, so it doesn't have a non-hybrid version.  But it still won top honors.  Here's what they say about the Prius:

After seven years on the market, the Prius is still the best hybrid for people who just plain want to burn less gas. It's arguably also the best for people who hope to save money in the long run. Built from scratch as a hybrid, it maximizes interior space and offers a roomy cargo hatch, whereas hybrid sedans tend to diminish trunk space and/or eliminate folding backseats. There is no gas-only version, but there doesn't have to be. It's both the most efficient and most affordable hybrid out there.

Sleuthing around a bit, I took a look at #2, the Saturn Vue Green Line, to see how its cost savings racked up, compared with the non-hybrid Vue.

We launched the new Daily Score site with the promise that our readers could comment without logging in, making it easier and faster to tell us what you think. But the spammers found us, fast, and we had to temporarily disable commenting on the Daily Score.

But we are up and running now (with a feature that makes you prove you are a real person). So comment away! Let the dialogue begin.

Last night, eating dinner at the Chinese place down the street, I had a window-side table where I could watch the sleet and pouring rain. It was all so wintry and miserable that I wondered if maybe we'd fixed that whole global warming thing.

But then -- dang it -- this morning I found a first-rate new report documenting how climate change is affecting the West. And unlike my idle speculations last night, it's not based on anecdote or wishful thinking: it's carefully researched, drawing on dozens of scienitifc studies and scores of hard data sources. The upshot, if you must know, is that the impacts are more profound here than in the East -- and that we're already feeling them.

This map really says it all:

Here's the full pdf: Hotter and Drier: The West's Changed Climate. It's a joint venture of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Standard survey questions often uphold (or manufacture) false dichotomies. A case in point: the perpetual practice of pitting the environment against the economy. Nonetheless, these questions can reveal interesting trends over time. And every now and then, the numbers show that the public sees right through "either/or" questions that just don't add up - like recent research that shows Americans link economic opportunity to environmental protection.

First recent trends on that pesky "environment vs. economy" question:

According to a new Gallup Poll, conducted March 6-9, despite fears of a looming recession, Americans continue to favor protecting the environment even at the risk of curbing economic growth,  Putting protecting the environment over economic growth by 49 percent to 42 percent . But this seven-point margin is down from the 18-point margin of a year ago, when 55 percent favored the environment. Further, the 49 percent of Americans currently favoring the environment over growth is only two points above the historical low over the past couple of decades.

We've been watching the Mountain Pine Beetle for a while as it's feasted upon the pine forests of British Columbia, infecting nearly 710 million cubic meters of the "1.35 billion cubic meters of saleable pine in the province (CBC News)." It is difficult to imagine that a beetle, no bigger than a grain of rice, can cause so much damage.  Then again, when that beetle has over a trillion friends, it is not so difficult to fathom. But new reports from the provincial Ministry of Forests and the Council of Forest Industries indicate that the infestation may have reached its peak, thanks in part to recent cold weather and a declining food supply.

It's simply impossible to overstate how rapid -- and devastating -- the beetle's spread has been. But it's wrong to think of it as a "natural" phenomenon.  Rather, it's a regrettable -- if not entirely unforeseeable -- consequence of two entirely of human forces:  timber management practices that have left unusually high concentrations of the precise sorts of trees that beetles like to feast on; and a climate-warming trend that's been simply ideal for beetle reproduction.  In other words, the pine beetle has enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The result:  ecological devastation on a truly massive scale.

A shocking visual: Clark cobbled together the following animation from this Canadian government report (pdf link) on the mountain pine beetle's infestation of British Columbia's interior forests.  The beetle epidemic started with scattered, isolated outbreaks in 1999, and within 6 short years spread to cover an area about three times as large as Vancouver island.  The red spots represent places affected by beetle outbreak.  If your internet browser lets you view animated graphics, you should see the infestation spread like cancer.

Yesterday, the New York Times lost its way on carbon taxes, publishing a confused and self-contradictory oped called, "On Carbon, Tax and Don't Spend." In it, Monica Prasad argues for taxing carbon and giving the proceeds to industry.

Charlie Komanoff has now skewered the piece, so I don't have to. Thanks, Charlie.

One of the thorniest problems in cap and trade programs is deciding how to distribute the carbon permits. Should the public sell pollution privileges or give them away for free?

Some folks worry that if we make polluters pay for carbon permits, they'll just raise prices for consumers. That's a perfectly legitimate concern. But unfortunately, it turns out to be true whether or not we sell the permits or give them away for free. Prices rise by the same amount in either scenario. (The only difference is whether polluters reap windfall profits or whether the public earns revenue from selling the permits.) It may be counterintuitive, but it's true.

It's also very hard to explain why this is the case without resorting to a lecture on economics. So in an attempt to clear things up, we've put together this easy-on-the-eyes summary. It comes in four parts:

1. A simple explanation
2. A bit more detailed explanation
3. A look at  Europe's carbon trading market
4. A review of the (basically unanimous) economic literature

Take a look and let us know what you think.

The New York Times has some moderately disturbing -- if unsurprising -- news about the widening health gap between rich and poor in the US.

New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades...

In 1980-82 ... people in the most affluent group could expect to live 2.8 years longer than people in the most deprived group (75.8 versus 73 years). By 1998-2000, the difference in life expectancy had increased to 4.5 years (79.2 versus 74.7 years), and it continues to grow, he said.

Unfortunately, the news that rich Americans are healthier than poor Americans is a bit of a dog-bites-man story at this point -- it's surprising to, well, just about nobody.   Same goes for the trends; few will be shocked to learn that health disparities and wealth disparities are widening more or less in tandem.  Is it disappointing? Sure. But unexpected? Not so much.

What I do find surprising, though, is the article's blinkered, incomplete view of how income inequality and health disparities are linked.

Briefly noted:  some anecdotal evidence that truckers are responding to rising fuel prices by slowing down.

Coast-to-coast trucker Lorraine Dawson says fellow drivers used to call her "Lead Foot Lorraine." But with diesel fuel around $4 a gallon, she and other big-rig drivers have backed off their accelerators to conserve fuel....

Dawson said she's cut her speed by five to 10 miles per hour to save money for her company. Many independent owner-operators have slowed even more, she said.

Unfortunately, it's hard to confirm whether this is just a good story, or a sign of a legitimate trend. But at a minimum, it's a great example of the sort of thing that people and businesses do to deal with higher fuel prices -- they cut back on consumption. 

Like pretty much anything, slowing down has both costs and benefits.  The costs:  truckers spend more time on the road, and shipments slow down a wee bit.  The benefits:  truckers save some cash on fuel, and the highways get a wee bit safer.  But given the surprisingly steep cost of car crashes, and the enormous wealth we export to pay for fuel, I'd wager that lightening a lead foot is, in the big picture, pretty good for the economy.

[Hat tip to groovalicious Gary D; photo by Geognerd, distributed under a Creative Commons license.]

University of British Columbia researchers have put a price tag on happiness.  The good news:  happiness is available for the low, low price of $5.00 (Canadian, that is). 

The better news:  you can't spend that money on yourself.  Instead, to get the most smiles per dollar, you have to spend money on other people. 

Dr Elizabeth Dunn at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and colleagues found that [experimental subjects] report significantly greater happiness if they spend money "pro-socially" - that is on gifts for others or on charitable donations - rather than spending on themselves.

The researchers apparently looked at three different kinds of studies -- a nationwide survey, a specific study of how employees spent their bonuses, and a controlled experiment on psychology undergrads.  In all cases, the evidence showed that giving money away made people happier. In fact, donating as little as $5 was enough to boost happiness on any given day. But the amount of money people spent on themselves had no appreciable effect on how happy they were.

In short, new research confirms an old adage:  it really is better to give than to receive. 

Noticed some changes in your yard? My rhododendron bush was blooming weeks ago  - in February. If you think that seems odd, you're right. The major papers report that spring is arriving earlier - and it’s most obvious in the Pacific Northwest. See the Seattle P-I and the Oregonian.

Please welcome freelance editor Christina Claassen to Sightline Daily’s team. Christina works three mornings a week from her home at the North Cascades Institute. (Yes, she lives in the park!) She clocks in at 5 and helps clip the regional papers. Christina is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Note from Alan: One of the toughest challenges for families with young children living in cities is the lack of safe, accessible outdoor play space for kids—a narrow urban balcony is no substitute for a fenced backyard. But Seattle-area planner (and mother) Alyse Nelson, who spent six months in Copenhagen documenting how to make a city bicycle friendly, discovered the Danish solution to this problem. She discovered it by looking out her kitchen window. Here’s her report.

Our Copenhagen apartment was in an old neighborhood. It was on a commercial street full of shops, with buses passing every two minutes. Our street was lined with marvelous Danish bikeways that made the entire city our two-wheeled home. I had lived in a compact neighborhood in Seattle, so I was already sold on urban life.

But I discovered that Copenhagen, though far denser than Seattle, is also dramatically more friendly to children. Like much urban housing in the City of Cyclists, our apartment overlooked a green and spacious courtyard. Gated where it met the sidewalk and shared only with others in our building and adjacent buildings on our block, it had play equipment, benches, chairs, and barbeques set amid gardens, lawns, and full-grown trees. It filled the interior of our block; it was like having a park inside your house. (The photo above is the wintertime view of the courtyard from my kitchen window.