Articles by Clark Williams-Derry

Tolls reduce driving, but maybe not enough

On most days, my wife and I commute together by car. And since my kids started a new, out-of-the-way school, our commute has gone from a fairly straightforward 15 minute trip -- mostly in the carpool lanes -- to a congested daily slog that, depending on traffic, can last over 45 minutes.

We definitely pay for our longer commute in higher bills for gas and repairs. But we don't have to pay for the road space -- we drive on the "freeway," after all.

But stuck in rush hour gridlock, among all the other drivers parked on I-5, it strikes me that the term "freeway" is a misnomer. In fact, we do pay a toll to drive on the freeway, especially during rush hour. It's just that we pay with our time, not our money.

Perhaps it doesn't have to be that way.

Press coverage of climate change is … changing

Am I the only one who senses a remarkable shift -- or, really, three shifts -- in how the press is covering climate change?

California’s per capita GHG emissions are falling

According to this, California's total greenhouse gas emissions rose by about 14 percent from 1990 through 2004.

OK, so that's not exactly good news.

But it's not the worst news in the world either, really. Over the same period, California's population grew by about 20 percent; so, running the numbers, it looks as if per person emissions fell by about, oh, 5 percent. That is, at the same time California's cars and homes got bigger and its economy boomed, the state managed a 5 percent reduction in per-capita GHG emissions.

The truth about ethanol

Harvard environmental science professor Michael B. McElroy takes a sober look at ethanol:

The balance in terms of emission of greenhouse gases is close to a wash for the United States: the reduction in net emissions of carbon dioxide obtained by using corn rather than petroleum as a "feedstock" for motor fuel is largely offset by additional emissions of the several hundredfold more potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, formed as a byproduct of the nitrogen fertilizer used to grow the corn.

I don't know anything about McElroy's potential biases, but he certainly comes off as a serious-minded critic rather than a hit man. So if you're interested in a hype-free view of ethanol production in the U.S., this seems like a good place to start.