Daily Score Blog

Loyal reader and commenter Paul Birkeland points me to this USA Today interactive map showing the decline of air travel in the US.  It's an update of a map we reported on last year, back when fuel prices were soaring and more and more planes were remaining earthbound as a result.

Since last year, fuel prices have come back to earth.  But with the economy now in a nosedive, it looks like the airlines are cutting back even farther on flights.  USA Today now projects that domestic air capacity this March will be down by a little over 8 percent, compared with March '08.  And unlike last year, air travel is on the downturn throughout the Northwest: off 6 percent in Washington, 11 percent in Oregon, and 14 percent in Idaho.

I, for one, am tired of the endless stream of gloomy economic statistics.  I want some good news for a change.  Still, this particular story fascinates me, since it shows strongly our energy-consuming ways are affected by upticks in fuel prices, and downdrafts in the markets.  Apparently, basic economics really do affect our behavior:  all the green cajoling and preaching over the last decade or so about the climate impacts of air travel has never had this kind of effect.  Which means that, for those of us concerned about how air travel affects the climate, the real trick will be to keep air emissions low even after the economy takes flight again.

Live in Seattle? Ever been curious about what goes on in a real-live think tank? Want to celebrate the New Year with your friends at Sightline Institute? Well, now’s your chance.

Wednesday, January 7 will be the Second Annual Vance Building Open House. Come check out Sightline’s office, along with those of two dozen other non-profits in the building. There will be food, drinks, good conversation, and worthy causes. Stop by, bring a friend, and meet a lot of people doing great things.

Details below the jump.

Over at Washington Policy Center, Todd Myers had a post a couple of weeks ago that gets something importantly right. Free allocation of carbon permits in a cap and trade system is a bad idea. Take it away, Todd:

This system was used in Europe and led to some companies being given large excesses of carbon credits which they then sold on the market. In short, government gave something of value (carbon credits) to companies who then profited from them. Worse, a recent report by the Government Accounting Office found that politicians handed out presents, choosing winners and losers when it came to handing out allocations, leaving some industries short and others long.

That's a good point. Not only is it free allocation inefficient, but it's ripe for abuse and favortism. Forget about fairness for consumers for a moment -- a subject we've written a lot about -- free allocation is not even fair for the firms that will be regulated under cap and trade. It's very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to develop a principled, rational, and fair way to hand out permits for free.

The most popular scheme for free allocation gives out permits based on historical emissions. This is sometimes called "grandfathering". The European cap and trade program took this approach (albeit in some peculiar ways) and it's possible that Washington may head down the same path. Unfortunately, grandfathering can cause some very problematic inequities.

Consider how this might work in practice.