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

Policy Stinker of the Day: Arizona Mulls Hiking Vehicle Fees to Fund State Parks

October 23, 2009, 1:28pm

Leonard Gilroy

As an Arizona taxpayer, an outdoor recreationist, and transportation wonk, I'm frankly offended by the latest bad idea to craftily pick our pockets in the midst of the state's cascading budget deficits.

A Nobel Prize for Showing That Freedom Works

Why Elinor Ostrom won

October 22, 2009

John Stossel

Ostrom's work concentrates on common-pool resources (CPR) like pastures and fisheries. Policymakers assume that such situations are plagued by free-rider problems, where all individuals have a strong incentive to use the resource to the fullest and no incentive to invest in order to enhance it. Analysts across the political spectrum theorize that only bureaucrats or owners of privatized units can efficiently manage such resources.

Few scholars actually venture into the field to see what people actually do when faced with free-rider problems. Ostrom did. It turns out that free people are not as helpless as the theorists believed.

Dishonest Attacks on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

October 19, 2009, 1:05pm

Anthony Randazzo

No one can fault Apple for supporting legislation that would hurt its opponents more than its costs would go up. In fact it is good business. But passing the bills would be bad politics.

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