Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Blog Archive » An Urban Voter’s Manifesto As an urban Indian, I will vote for a party that promotes the values that matter to my country, my family, and me. I address this open letter to the political parties who seek my vote in the upcoming elections. Drop m...

I agree to the analysis by Kristof that in the hierarchy of bad jobs, sweatshops are not a bad deal. I’m glad that many Americans are repulsed by the idea of importing products made by barely paid, barely legal workers in dangerous factories. Yet sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cau...

Two of my favorite scholars, Richard Posner and Lawrence Summers, channel the spirit of Mr. Friedman in the Kinsley volume. Mr. Summers pithily sums up the case against Mr. Gates: It is hard in this world to do well. It is hard to do good. When I hear a claim that an institution is going to do both,...

Environmentalists and climate change activists are understandably delighted. Consider this: For eight years the United States has boasted an Energy Department that for all intents and purposes was a subsidiary of the U.S. oil industry. Now, should he be confirmed, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who...

The 7.30 Report - Govt releases green paper on climate change tags: WiGLinks, carbon, trading, australia, govt Well it’s hardly a surprise but the Government’s green paper tells us an emissions trading scheme will be costly. It will be inflationary and could push the price of electricity...

The McKinsey Quarterly has a good interview with the cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute. The Quarterly: Given the economic benefits of saving energy, why haven’t companies already seized all the opportunities available to them? Amory Lovins: Most chief executives assume that smart engineers...

The Art of Nonconformity » The Normalization of Mediocrity To reverse the acceptance of mediocrity as the new standard, the only escape route is nonconformity through setting your own example of being the anti-mediocre. Here’s a few ways to do that, and you can probably think of more. 1. Stop rew...

The Australian states are working hard to compete against each other to come up with more restrictive solar options. The South Australia government came up with a “net metering feed-in-tariff” which does not provide much incentive compared to a gross metering system. Now, it is the turn ...

Mungo MacCallum writes on Crikey about Dr. Nelson, the leader of the Liberal party in Australia on his budget reply speech suggestion of a decrease in excise duty of 5c per litre of petrol. There are some policy proposals which are so bad that they are unforgivable, and this is one of them. At the m...

Slashdot points to an article by Joe Romm, who is considered “one of the world’s leading experts on clean energy, advanced vehicles, energy security, and greenhouse gas mitigation” discussing the merits of solar thermal energy. Frankly, I have never seen a better article on this and is...