03 August 2010

A Recent Talk of Mine


[UPDATE 8/4: Jack O. contacts me by email to notify me of a factual error in the talk.  I misspoke when I said that a $1 tax per barrel of oil would raise $100 billion.  A $1 tax would raise about $30 billion.  The tax needed to raise $100 billion is closer to $3/barrel, and this refers to global production.  The value is $5 per barrel if the tax is limited to OECD countries.  I often use $30 billion and $100 billion as order of magnitude examples for investment in innovation because the former is about what the US public invests in medical R&D and the latter in defense R&D.  There are no implications for my arguments.  Thanks!]

I gave the keynote talk at the 8th Environmental Policy Conference of the Washington Policy Center last week in Seattle. The talk is now up on the website of Washington State public affairs television. It was a 30 minute talk, so I hit highlights, rather than present a detailed academic lecture (I give those also). Anyway, have a look, I welcome your feedback. The talk starts at 17:30 in the video above.