Water Trouble Coming to the U.S.
The latest US Drought Monitor has been released and there is good and bad news within. Here in Wisconsin our drought situation improved slightly from last week. The driest areas of the state are still...
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Housing Starts Are Negative!
Earlier this week I mentioned how the trip back from my fishing vacation was somewhat ruined when I heard on the radio that the Times Atlas of the World had wildly exaggerated the amount of ice that...
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7 Billion People, Maybe Not.
It is that time of the week for the US Drought Monitor update. Once again it is pretty good news for Wisconsin. Even though we did not have a drop of rain for the first 10 days of October, the...
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7 Billion People, Redux
Other than today being Halloween, it is also the day that the U.N. has designated as “7 billionth” person day. Read this past blog post for some of the details behind counting the population and why...
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Food and “Lost” Farmland
Another week has passed and we have another US Drought Monitor update. There has been some significant rain in some drought-stricken areas, including southern Wisconsin and southern Minnesota but it...
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Divorcing the Car
I am amazed sometimes how a confluence of events, information, and opinion can perfectly illustrate some ideas I have been promulgating for some time now. In fact, I am a bit jealous of other writers...
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Birth Rate Declines Again – A Good Sign?
And the good news keeps rolling in! Yesterday I discussed a recent study showing a decrease in carbon emissions during recessions and reminded everyone of how the U.S. emissions are the lowest in 20...
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Housing Starts Are Positive!
A while back I penned a blog entry titled “Housing Starts Are Negative“. My contention was that it is not a negative thing if new home construction is going down. Basing our economy and measure of...
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A Trip to Phoenix
As promised, today I will share some thoughts and pictures from my recent trip to the desert – Phoenix. I would talk a little more about hurricane Sandy, but Rob already did a great job in yesterday’s...
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Bad Incentives
First a little update on the issue I brought up before leaving on vacation, and that is seemingly perverse economic incentives in the U.S. Many policies used to stimulate the economy are often not good...
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“Peak Car” Has Passed
I often mention how you should check in on the weather blog often because of all the great weather information but also because I try to keep track of major technology, science, and energy trends. One...
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Malinvestment=Environmental Problems
I didn’t grow up like most people in the U.S in the 1970s and 1980s. The vast majority of my contemporaries had already moved off of farms and were living in cities. Not only did I live on a farm, we...
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Concrete Life Persists
During the 2nd weekend of September I was fortunate enough to get away and do some fishing with my family. As was the caseseven years ago, when I penned “The Concrete Life“, I had to drive through the...
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You get what you pay (more) for
It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Depending upon your perspective, it is either negative or positive feedback loop. The current issue of a wheel tax in Wausau brings to mind some salient blog...
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Roads are Expensive
Did you see this recent story on WAOW.com “Turnout for Transportation“? If you are a regular blog reader, I hope some economic and environmental themes popped into your head. I have been writing about...
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Less miles, better world
You might recall that I am not a big fan of urban sprawl. As I grew up in these United States, I came to the realization that most of our cities are not designed for people, but rather the mode of...
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Minimal Life, Minimal Pollution
My wife cued up a documentary on our streaming media service the other day and casually mentioned “you might like it”. Was it the latest and greatest developments in science, technology, weather, or...
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Things Change, Always
One thing that is not commented upon too often nowadays in regard to anthropogenic global warming (AGW, aka “climate change”) and pollution in general is that a lower population would likely mean less...
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Problems Solved
I heard some great news the other day, but judging by the headlines, you might think the world was ending. The U.S. birthrate hit a record low in the past year. A typical report about this stat could...
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