When I joined the Foreign Office in 1979 it was engaged in a soul-searching review into why it had failed to predict the fall of the shah of Iran. On the eve of the revolution, our ambassador in Iran, Anthony Parsons, had embarrassingly written to David

In Washington's bitter political climate, the one thing everyone can agree on is energy efficiency, whether that means longer lasting light bulbs or cars that go further on a gallon of gas. But our passion for cheap energy is likely to have some unsavory

I haven't read David Owen's new book but he appears to be taking Jevons too seriously. He needs to read Gary Becker's work on the value of time in a society where our value of time is rising. Here is the blurb for his book: Mathew is an economics profess

For a singularly grim, if fiercely literary, assessment of the earth’s environmental fate, the grizzled wisdom of Cormac McCarthy is always there to deliver the dark pronouncement that we’re flat-out doomed. “The way of the world is to bloom and to flowe

David Owen of the New Yorker and the author of The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse argues that most of the ways we’re fighting global warming (more efficient e

About this week's guest: About ideas and people mentioned in this podcast: Intro. [Recording date: February 1, 2012.] Russ: This is a fascinating, short, engaging book on the topic of saving the planet and the environment generally; and you've called you