Program for the Human Environment

New York Times columnist John Tierney publishes an article “Use Energy, Get Rich and Save the Planet” about the PHE work on whether Richer is Greener.

Some wonder whether the present economic slump will elicit a change of direction and faster progress in reducing environmental harm.  Jesse Ausubel and Paul Waggoner, assisted by Smriti Rao, examined what happened to USA energy use and emissions during the slumps of the 1930s and after World War II.   A short essay, “The Jack Rabbit of Depression, or Do economic slumps benefit environment?” provides our answer.  Two 40-second animations prepared by Smriti show the year-by-year changes from 1920 to 1940 of energy intensity and carbon emissions.

Keeping a steady course rather than darting about was also a theme of Jesse’s address “Natural Gas and the Jack Rabbit” to the Power South Energy Cooperative on 22 January 2009.

We post the rise and fall of sulfur dioxide emissions in the USA, which form an Environmental Kuznets Curve where richer is first dirtier and then richer becomes cleaner, as explored in the 3/12/09 posting about “Is Richer Greener“?

PHE-sponsored “Sushi-gate” investigation is featured in April 2009 Scripps Oceanographic Institute Magazine. The article, which describes work done by FISHBOL researchers Phil Hastings and Ron Burton, quotes PHE’s Mark Stoeckle and cites his daughter Kate, co-author with her high school classmate Louisa Strauss, of 2008 report on mislabeled fish sold in NYC revealed by DNA barcoding (aka “Sushi-gate”).