Reason Foundation

Recent Research and Commentary

How Green Are Your Nukes?

Environmentalists Stewart Brand and Al Gore debate nuclear power in two new books.

November 10, 2009

Ronald Bailey

The role that nuclear power might play in addressing the problem of man-made global warming is fiercely disputed among environmentalists. Two new books by big names in the movement stake out the boundaries of that debate. On the pro-nuclear side stands Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, by Stewart Brand. And parked in the (more or less) anti-nuclear corner is Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, by Al Gore. A self-described “green,” Stewart Brand founded and edited the counterculture Whole Earth Catalog back in 1968. In his first book, Earth in the Balance (1992), then-Sen. Al Gore argued, “We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization.”

SuperFreaking Out Over Climate Engineering

Freakonomics authors freak out environmental activists by suggesting a technical fix for global warming

November 3, 2009

Ronald Bailey

Although flawed, in SuperFreakonomics, Levitt and Dubner have done citizens and policymakers a real service by breaking the taboo on discussing the feasibility and risks of climate engineering in public.

Will SuperFreakonmics Effect Our Approach to Climate Change?

October 31, 2009, 12:12pm

Adrian Moore

Climate Change and the Nanny State

Do we need the government to save us from ourselves?

September 23, 2009

David Harsanyi

This week, prepping for the upcoming Copenhagen climate change talks, Dr. Steven Chu, our erstwhile energy secretary, crystallized the administration's underlining thinking by claiming that the "American public ... just like your teenage kids, aren't acting in a way that they should act. The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is."

Doubling Down on Climate Change

Activists want America to reduce emissions to 1960s levels. Is that even possible?

September 22, 2009

Ronald Bailey

We're talking about the equivalent of shuttering every single one of America's coal plants in favor of hundreds of new nuclear facilities, hundreds of thousands of windmills, or millions of solar panels—or perhaps replacing the entire U.S. auto fleet with zero-emissions vehicles. The magnitude of such an effort would be similar to the projected costs of President Obama's proposed government-funded health insurance plan or the price tag for the War on Terror. These are big changes, not to be glossed over in glowing speeches about international cooperation and our bright green energy future.

Is Government Action Worse than Global Warming?

Why policy nihilism may be the only rational response to climate change

September 9, 2009

Ronald Bailey

Man-made global warming may simply be a negative externality for which the transaction costs are too high. In other words, any benefits achieved from trying to mitigate global warming will most likely be swamped by the costs of distributing the corporate welfare used to buy the political acquiescence of various industries. As much as one might hope to implement good public policy to deal with the problem, policy nihilism might be the only rational response to global warming.

More »