Sean Meriwether's Blog: The Green Economist, page 18

Millennials are Investing with Impact

Social Responsible Investing (SRI)  is an investment discipline that considers environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) criteria alongside other industry metrics to generate long-term results with positive social impact. ESG ratings are published by several companies, with MSCI and Sustainalytics two of the largest US-based providers. There has been a long-held belief that ESG screening  requires a tradeoff with lower (or negative) financial returns. SRI investors have shown that...

Resource Management in 1984: The Continuous War

It should come as no surprise that George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, has returned to best seller’s lists. We often turn to literature to help make sense of reality, which can be incomprehensible and a lot less linear. It is easy to draw comparisons between Orwell’s alternate reality and a political administration that intentionally lies to the public, attempts to disempower and circumvent the free press, and manipulates previously published statements to fit the current version of their...

Portfolio Diversification Across Asset Classes

Diversification of portfolios with U.S. equity holdings can come in many forms, but one traditional method is to include alternative assets classes. To achieve diversification the portfolio should include assets that are not in step with (correlated to) the U.S. equities markets, otherwise both assets will rise and fall in tandem and offer no protection against market swings or inflationary environments. Historically this means investing in real estate, foreign equity and debt, and commoditie...

Agroecology: A Multifacted Solution

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), smallholder farms provide up to 80 percent of the food supply in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Although farmers work small plots of land (average size is 2 hectares), they produce a variety of crops with high yields and very few inputs such as manufactured fertilizer. These cost savings are passed on to the consumer in affordable sustenance for the rural and urban poor. These individually-held farms provide economic opportunities and ar...

America Can Have Energy Independence with Renewable Sources

President Richard Nixon fumbled the first energy crisis in 1973. The oil-producing countries that formed OPEC wanted to control the price of oil and cut off supply to create scarcity with the hope that this would increase the price per barrel.America had no concerns about oil supply prior to the embargo—resources appeared to be limitless—but being cut off from the lifeblood that was at the very center of the modern economy forced the country to face its vulnerability.

In a normal market when...

Standoff at Standing Rock: Oil vs Water

Thousands of people, including environmentalists, American war veterans, and indigenous people representing over 300 native tribes, joined the Standing Rock Sioux Indians in a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The pipeline is a $3.7 billion project that will run 1,172 miles from North Dakota to Illinois, allowing an average of 520,000 barrels of crude oil per day to be transported from oil fields in North Dakota to repositories in Illinois.Energy Transfer Partners LLC, the co...

The Benefits of Waste to Energy Plants

One of the more pressing challenges that face cities today is an effective waste management program. A majority of cities truck waste out of the city to a distant landfill, often at great expense. Americans generate an average of 4.3 pounds of waste per day. In 2015, the United States alone generated more than 258 million tons of municipal solid waste, with only 34.6% being recycled. 136 million tons were sent to landfill, which is the second-largest source of human-related methane gas emissi...

Building Resilience into Complex Systems

When a person is single they make their own decisions and any consequences are self-contained. In a relationship, the needs and desires of a second person must be taken into consideration. Decision making calls for ongoing compromise between both people. As more people are added to the household, including other adults, family members or children, the system becomes more complex and requires structure to maintain its equilibrium. Communication becomes more critical to understand the needs of...

Adapting to Climate Change

The world’s cities are at the greatest risk from climate change socially and economically. Each city will face its own challenge based on their regional location and may experience increased incidence of drought, flood, extreme heat or cold, and extreme weather events. Many cities are built near large bodies of water, including oceans and rivers, which increases the threat of rising sea levels. Cities in the developing world, especially South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, have additional chall...

Managing Decisions in Complex Systems

Complex systems including climate change, health care policy, and consumer behavior are difficult to comprehend because they have many overlapping factors that influence each other; it is hard to accurately model an outcome. The further out the time horizon the more challenging it becomes to make an informed decision. The concept of bounded rationality, which is the idea that decision making is limited by the information that individuals have—or choose to pay attention to—further complicates...