Out of Control

It's pretty tough to separate drivers from their cars, but China's going to try:

China will initiate its first-ever nationwide "no car day" this weekend

Residents in 108 cities will be urged to take public transport, ride bikes or walk on the nation's first "no car day" on Saturday, the China Daily reported.

"The move is an attempt to raise residents' awareness on energy saving and environmental protection because the country's cities are plagued by traffic congestion and pollution," the paper said.

It did not say why the Ministry of Construction, the sponsor of the activity, chose a Saturday to hold the event.

Government officials and state-run enterprise employees in some cities would be encouraged not to drive, while other urban centres would ban government-owned cars from taking to the roads altogether, it added.

A week-long campaign to publicise the government's goal of getting 50 percent of the nation's urban residents to use public transport instead of private cars would also be initiated, it said.

Article here.

Mexico City has a long history of yanking keys from drivers. Officials figured that would have to cut pollution and boost transit ridership. They underestimated their constituents.

RELATED: Paris vs. SUV

As usual, Joel Schwartz cuts through the smog.

WorldatWork:

The survey found that 12.4 million workers reported that their employer allowed them to work remotely at least one day per month in 2006, up from 9.9 million in 2005 and 7.6 million in 2004. WorldatWork estimates that about 8 percent of American workers have an employer that allows them to telecommute at least one day per month.

The organization says the increase is likely the result of a combination of factors, including the proliferation of high speed/broadband and other wireless access (which has made it both less expensive and more productive to work remotely) and the willingness of more employers to embrace flexibility.

More here.

Related: Telecommuting no big deal anymore

Network World’s Bob Brown interviews Tom Mulhall, co-owner of The Terra Cotta Inn, a clothing optional resort and spa in Palm Springs, CA.

Any advice to those looking to give naked telework a whirl?

Get a laptop with good screen resolution. Since Palm Springs is very sunny, we have seen guests with a towel over there head and laptop to cut down glare. Otherwise you will be forced to work in the shade. Also don't use a laptop at the edge of the pool while you are in the water. Laptops, a few cocktails and pool water do not mix as we have seen a few times.

Do you know of people who have sought out telecommuting jobs to satisfy their desire to work naked?

Yes, we have some guests mainly in the high-tech field that purposely freelance so that they can live nude at home. They just dislike wearing clothes, and freelancing out of their homes is the best thing that has ever happened to them. I would say, however, that most of our guests do not consider themselves nudists. They are regular people who just enjoy nude sunbathing on their vacations.

Related: How many of them are there?

Back in the clothed world of telecommuting, the online classroom is becoming mainstream:

1 million kindergarten through high school student enrollments in virtual schooling

Enrollment, counted as the total number of seats in all online classes, not the number of students, has grown more than 20 times in seven years, and the group expects the numbers to continue to jump 30% annually.

Article here.

Related: Telecollege gets a boost

In Digging Up Trouble: The Health Risks of Construction Pollution in California, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) claims air pollution from construction vehicles is killing more than 1,100 Californians each year, sending similar numbers to the hospital, and sickening hundreds of thousands more. UCS estimates the economic toll at more than $9 billion per year. Fortunately, these claims have little to do with reality. UCS exaggerates harm from air pollution by excluding contrary evidence and ignoring weaknesses in studies that support its predetermined conclusions.

Read Reason's analysis of the report, by Joel Schwartz, here.

Laer, at Cheat Seeking Missles, weighs in here.

It can be tough to sort out all the pros and cons of owning a hybrid car. There’s the gas mileage advantage, but that’s often overstated.

Even though the savings may not be as grand as advertised, you'll still save money at the pump. But since you pay more at the dealership you’ll have factor in your driving habits and do a bit of number-crunching to figure out if your four-wheeled eco-statement will save you dough in the long-run. And there are plenty of other factors to consider. For example, what about maintenance costs and resale value?

A new study looks at the whole hybrid:

all of the 22 hybrid models currently sold in the U.S. will save owners money thanks to lower total cost of ownership

That news is significant vindication for manufacturers and consumers of hybrid gas-electrics that have often endured questions from critics and consumers alike about the long-term economy of the technology-packed cars.
…

The IntelliChoice survey focused on seven criteria, including depreciation, fuel costs, finance costs, insurance, repairs, maintenance, and applicable state fees. After the Prius, the group found the Honda Civic Hybrid, the Toyota Highlander 2WD, and the Lexus RX 400h (2WD and AWD) were the most cost-efficient over a five-year or 70,000-mile period. Those models are all made by the two leading hybrid manufacturers, Honda and Toyota.

Business Week article here.

Slide show of hybrid rankings here.

Related: What politicians drive

It turns out, the industry that pollutes more than any other in Southern California than perhaps petroleum refineries is--Hollywood! According to a recent UCLA report from the Institute of the Environment:

The industry tops hotels, aerospace, and apparel and semiconductor manufacturing in traditional air pollutant emissions in Southern California, according to the study, initially prepared for the Integrated Waste Management Board, and is probably second only to petroleum refineries, for which comparable data were not available. The entertainment industry ranks third in greenhouse gas emissions.

The complete article is here.

The full report from UCLA can be found here.

I see stuff like this as more evidence that managers should rethink their in-the-desk-from-9-to-5 mentality:

subjects that took a 10 minute nap significantly improve performance in multiple post-nap tests.

Study here; via Tasty Research.

I think one of the reasons telecommuters often work longer and more productively than office workers is because they’re better able to fit in recuperative activities. Even just creating a more comfortable environment—working outdoors from a reclining chair as I recall one design engineer doing, going tie-less (or even less)—helps workers’ brains stay fresh.

Related: Telecommuters Prove More Productive (with comments from yours truly)

There are probably quite a few enviros and transit-backers who wish we’d stop asking people to drive less, stop talking about tinkering with the gas tax, and just yank keys away from drivers.

Mexico City tried that, sort of. In 1989 officials introduced a program that bans all vehicles from driving one workday per week based on the last digit of the vehicle's license plate.

Certainly that kind of “get tough” policy would cut emissions and boost transit ridership … Or maybe not.

Matthew Kahn points to a study by University of Michigan’s Lucas W. Davis: The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Mexico City.

From the abstract:

there is no evidence that the program has improved air quality

there is no evidence of increased ridership of the Mexico City subway or public bus system. Instead, evidence from the market for used taxis suggests that the program induced substitution to taxis

More here.

Another sign that telecommuting is moving from emerging innovation to commonplace practice:

"We learned that companies need to build a product that says, 'if you come and work for us here's what you're going to have: a casual work environment, a flexible schedule' -- whatever that may be," said Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh. "Companies are realizing that in order to attract the best people to come work for their companies they need to create an environment that's conducive to do that."

Yoh surveyed 198 HR managers at the Society for Human Resource Management 2006 Conference and Exposition in June about their company's telecommuting policies. The results of the survey were just released this week.

According to the survey, 81 percent of hiring managers now have policies that allow employees to work remotely. In addition, 67 percent of hiring managers believe the number of employees who work remotely will grow by 2008.

Respondents to Computerword’s most recent annual Best Places to Work in IT survey cited telecommuting as an important facet of their jobs, with 36 percent calling it “extremely important.”

More here.

Related: The Telecommuting Trend

Anousheh Ansari is the first female Muslim in space, the first Iranian to reach Earth orbit, and perhaps the first civilian telecommuter in the ISS:

she has been trying to keep on top of her office work while she has been aboard, and has been receiving status reports from her staff at Prodea Systems, the telecommunications company she co-founded.

Article here.

Earlier I mentioned a recent survey which found that few workers are interested in telecommuting. I was skeptical of that then, and now comes another survey that is more typical of most examinations of employee attitudes.

According to a July 19 survey by the Hudson Employment Index:

most of the work force (59 percent) believes that telecommuting at least part-time is the ideal work situation

...

Even among workers who are not given the choice, half report that working away from the office at least sometimes would be their preference. But those who have the option of clocking in from home take advantage of it when they can – 38 percent work from home a minimum of once a week. Just 20 percent rarely or never choose this option.

Press release here.

Meanwhile, across the pond:

The Broadband User Survey from research firm Point Topic has found that some 4.3 million households in Britain – 18 per cent of all homes in the country – contain someone working from home.
…

Freelancer workers make up half the total, while four out of 10 are employees working remotely. The third, much smaller group of eight per cent are running a business from home with employees.

More here.

Here’s what the very same Prof. Kannan quoted in the previous post thinks:

telecommuting is one generation removed from a huge boom

He says much of the resistance to telecommuting is age related, but that will change once the new generation moves into positions of authority.

Says Kannan:

But informal chats at the office usually involve some level of privacy. It’s unlikely that telecommuters will feel confident if the company is providing the environment where they are supposed to be candid with each other.

“There are technologies where you can have private conversations not hosted by the company, but younger workers place a much lower premium on that kind of privacy,” he said. “Maybe their need for privacy will grow as they get older, but they are used to sharing their thoughts on computers.”

Article here.

All those people working from home could translate into annual gasoline savings of $3.9 billion, according to the National Technology Readiness Survey.

The study found that 2 percent of U.S. workers telecommute full-time and another 9 percent do so part-time.
But another 14 percent of workers have the option of telecommuting, or have jobs conducive to the practice but choose not to, the study found.

The numbers suggest that many people would rather work at the office even if their job allowed telecommuting, said Professor P.K. Kannan, of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, which sponsored the study with Rockbridge Associates Inc., a Great Falls, Virginia research firm.

"That seems to suggest that even if employers were to say tomorrow that everybody had the option of telecommuting and you would save a lot of gas, that's not going to happen," Kannan said.

Sure, not everyone, perhaps not even most would telecommute if given the option, but that doesn’t mean we should assume workers aren’t interested in it and leave it at that. In most of the top 50 metro areas telecommuting already tops transit commuting and, apart from driving alone, it was the only commute mode to gain market share from 1980 to 2000. The evidence is pretty clear that the practice has continued to grow since 2000.

According to one recent survey, 80 percent of San Diego area folks who don’t telecommute say they would if given the chance. Do I think 80 percent of those surveyed really would telecommute? No way, but it still shows there’s pretty strong interest. And even if only, say, 20 percent really did end up working from home that would still make a big difference.

According to the National Technology Readiness Survey, of those who telecommute, most only do so one, two, or three days a week. But people should only do it as often as they want to, and the more people learn about part week (or even part day) telecommuting, the better.

My hunch is that many managers and employees quickly dismiss the idea because they assume telecommuting is an all-or-nothing choice. Few people will be able to ditch the office entirely, but as more people realize that telecommuting frequency can vary tremendously more will give telecommuting another look and figure out the best way to personalize the process of work.

Article here; thanks to Bobby B. for the tip.

Jeff Taylor poses the question to Charlotte:

A November study by the Reason Foundation found that telecommuters already outnumber transit commuters in Charlotte by two to one. Yet the Queen City's telecommute rate trails that of both Greensboro and Nashville, suggesting there is real room for improvement there. Common sense suggests it, too: Is there a more telecommute-ready workforce in America than uptown's legions of white-collar office workers?

Whole piece here.

My latest telecommuting piece is here.

The four-year review of HP's real estate kicked off a little less than a year after CEO Mark Hurd announced plans to aggressively cut costs within the company. Under the new program, HP wants to reduce the number of offices it maintains and to have a smaller number of "core sites," it said in a press release.

Article here; Thanks to Brad Hutchings for the tip.

Getting by with less office space is easier when you allow employees to telecommute, yet HP recently pulled most of its IT staff back to the office.

I've pointed out that there’s some evidence that government-sector managers, who have been even more resistant to telecommuting than their private-sector counterparts, are beginning to warm up to the idea.

Yet it still gets a chilly reception from many of these folks:

For government agencies to fully realize the benefits of telecommuting, such top managers need to change their attitudes, said Wendell Joice, head of the U.S. General Services Administration's governmentwide telework team.
"We are hampered by constantly having to beg and plead," said Joice, speaking at a conference called Continuity of Operations Planning in the Federal Government and Industry: Enabling a Mobile Workforce in Times of Crisis. The event, held here, was sponsored by iPass Inc., RSA Security Inc. and research firm Input Inc.

Article here.

Related: When telecommuters screw up (but was he really a telecommuter?)

Once again Joel Schwartz nails it on air pollution issues, this time in the venerable Washington Post.

The EPA attributes well over 90 percent of the benefits of its clean air programs to improvements in human health. Thus, a key policy question is whether EPA's health-benefit claims are credible.

. . .

The most serious claim about air pollution is that it prematurely kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. This claim is based on small statistical correlations between pollution levels and risk of death. But correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, as demonstrated recently by a number of embarrassing reversals of conventional medical wisdom.

The air pollution--mortality claim deserves even greater skepticism. First, it is based on the same unreliable correlation methods that have led medical authorities astray in other areas. Second, even though pollution is weakly correlated with higher premature mortality on average, it seems to protect against death in about one-third of cities. How could pollution kill people in some cities and save them in others? More likely, both results are chance correlations rather than real effects. Third, in laboratory experiments, researchers have been unable to kill animals by exposing them to air pollution at levels many times greater than ever occur in the United States.

USA TODAY:

The escalating price of gas is reviving interest in telecommuting as a way for employees to curb the growing cost of commuting to the office.

One recent example:

Sun Microsystems has seen an increase in employees interested in a flexible work program that lets employees work anywhere, including from home. More than 13,000 of Sun's employees work from home up to two days a week and about 2,000 work from home more than three days a week. It saves employees an average of two hours a week in commute time.

More here.

Responding to this post of mine in which I examine Hewlett Packard’s recent decision to bring nearly all of its IT staff back to the office, Brett from Oregon writes:

I currently live in an HP town, and HP has been laying off workers left and right. There has not been a single job posting in years. It is widely believed that HP is trying to eliminate facilities and reduce payroll. The layoffs are so severe in Oregon that HP has brokered a deal whereby their layoff numbers are kept secret.

Odds are, this rule change away from telecommuting and flexible work schedules is an attempt to get rid of workers who require these flexible schedules. This would reduce unemployment costs from eventual layoffs as well as operational costs.

Interesting point. Bernie Goldbach seems to agree:

…

HP has a bulge at the 15/50 point--I reckon around 600 people. That's a trainload full of employees who have been with the company for nearly 15 years or that's a cohort of seasoned experience approaching 50 years of age. They have to squeeze that cohort because it's expensive labour with attitude. It's much easier to impose a lower cost-per-employee on a work force that's younger and more flexible about work practises and company policies. H-P people with the experience have roots in communities, often hundreds of miles away form their assigned office cubicles. They probably will resign their positions rather than pay the extra petrol charges or move house. And that cuts wage costs at H-P. It also sheds a lot of expertise in places like enterprise services and if imposed with a clock-in system at the main doorway, it could place the efficiency of the printer division at risk.

HP has been a pioneer in telecommuting and flexible work schedules, but now nearly all IT employees must report to work at the office:

…

By August, almost all of HP's IT employees will have to work in one of 25 designated offices during most of the week. With many thousands of HP IT employees scattered across 100 sites around the world -- from Palo Alto to Dornach, Germany -- the new rules require many to move. Those who don't will be out of work without severance pay, according to several employees affected by the changes.
…

The architect of the HP division's change, Randy Mott, is regarded by Wall Street as a mastermind of operational efficiency based on his days as chief information officer at Wal-Mart Stores and Dell. Since joining HP as CIO in July, Mott's philosophy on building a strong IT workforce starkly contrasts with that of competitors, who encourage telecommuting to retain skilled workers who desire better work/life balance.

Mott said by bringing IT employees together to work as teams in offices, the less-experienced employees who aren't performing well -- which there are ``a lot of'' -- can learn how to work more effectively.

In an office, ``you're able to put teams together that can learn very aggressively and rapidly from each other,'' he said.

Sure. But you also risk losing talented people who wouldn’t work for you if telecommuting weren’t an option. One woman has worked at HP for about 20 years and she says she’s not going to uproot her family and move across the country to her designated California office:

``Why is HP telling us we can't do this when everybody else is saying, `Please do'? That's kind of bizarre,'' said the employee, who didn't want to be identified for fear of retribution. ``I like my flexibility. The only reason I've stayed with HP this long is because I've been telecommuting.''

Some problems HP had with telecommuting:

admitted to driving a tractor during conference calls

Admitted to driving a tractor? Seems like operating heavy equipment isn’t really a sensory gray area. But all this is easily fixed with a simple rule that is so obvious that most people don’t need it spelled out for them: No loud background noises while you’re on a conference call.

morphed from a strategic tool used to keep exceptional talent into a right

Sounds like this has more to do with bad management than with telecommuting itself. Managers who make it clear that telecommuting is a privilege find that employees work hard to earn the right to stay home and they also work hard to keep the valued perk.

It’ll be interesting to see how much talent HP loses and to see if this move will have any sort of ripple effect.

Article here.

My recent piece on why managers should give telecommuting another look is here.

Bosses often resist telecommuting and for a long while logistics made the practice more trouble than it was worth. But skepticism persists even as technology makes working from remote locations increasingly feasible.

Computers continue to get cheaper and faster, and in the span of a single decade the Internet and cell phones have gone from novelties to tools that average Americans use every day. So much progress, and yet, according to a survey of LA area employees who don't telecommute, 80 percent have bosses who still won't let them work from home.

Continue reading my commentary here.

BTW, this applies to more folks than just Angelinos. Although there are signs that bosses are beginning to warm to telecommuting, it tends to be a slow thaw. For the most part, employees still don't have the stay-at-home option.

"You can now earn a New York salary and live in a much less expensive place," says Chris Miller, executive director of the Creative Coast Initiative, a non-profit organization that promotes the advantages of Savannah, Georgia, which attracts many telecommuters with Atlanta-based companies.

Population-losing rural areas are using telecommuting to lure residents and businesses:

places disabled Iraq vets in call-center jobs

Midwest Institute spokeswoman, Jane Anderson, says, "Telework is especially good for people with disabilities. It's not for everyone. Some people miss the social aspects of working in an office, but the ones who like it make very loyal employees."

One of the companies Anderson has recruited is Willow CSN., a call-center firm that handles sales and service requests for such companies as Sears, AAA and Carnival Cruises. Willow's entire labor force is made up of virtual workers, 3,200 strong in 37 states and growing. CEO Angela Selden says Willow will double its force this year.

In Lodi, Wisconsin, a town of 2,000 inhabitants, Gayle Buske founded a company called Team Double-Click, which matches administrative assistants and graphic designers with small businesses.

Some factoids:

More than 12 million Americans now telecommute full-time

Combined, the ranks of these telecommuters has risen 10 percent since 2004.

Article here.

Related: Slackers no longer

I just saw a license plate border that read: “saving the planet one hybrid at a time.”

It was attached to a hybrid Ford Escape AKA an SUV!

Perhaps the reputation of SUV owners (at least hybrid SUV owners) has come full circle.

From a 2003 article of mine:

SUV foes demanded to know why someone would suck up natural resources, and trash the planet just to intimidate other drivers with his street-legal monster truck? As the moralizing mounted, the social standing of SUV owners continued to erode. Today, SUV owners can only claim moral superiority over the likes of smokers and spammers.

But I wonder how drivers of super-efficient hybrids feel about Escape owners who brag about their eco-friendliness. And as I pointed out here, many owners of regular non-hybrid cars have plenty to boast about too.

BTW, the most self-righteous message on the back of a hybrid is still: “How many lives per gallon do you get?”

Watch the South Part "Smug Alert!" episode here.

With this bed/office telecommuters can even fit a home office in one of Manhattan’s 250 square foot studio apartments.

The law, one of the first in the nation, gives employers a state income tax credit of up to $20,000 if they conduct a study on how to implement a teleworking program for their business.

The measure also rewards employers who implement teleworking programs by giving them a tax credit of up to $1,200 per employee for a percentage of their telework expenses in calendar years 2008 and 2009.

Article here.

Some interesting telecommuting bits (including a quotation by yours truly) in this column.

Here’s one:

"When you're working with creative people, how many of them with have an ah-ha moment at home at the dinner table? When those flashes of intuition arrive, you want to test them out as quickly as you can," says marketing boss David Lynch of telecommuting's edge. "We tend to treat our people as being capable of managing their own day-to-day objectives."

More evidence that contradicts the telecommuter-as-slacker meme ...

At Florida’s Kissimmee Utility Authority:

have proven more productive at home, handling more calls than they did when working in the office

…

Sun [Microsystems] says more than 15,000, or about half its employees, participate in its program that allows them to work from home.

On average, the employees save two hours a week in commute time and they are a third more productive, according to Sun Microsystems.

Article here.

In related news:

Using statistics from several sources, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said a more entrepreneurial work force was emerging as Americans leveraged the nation's strong job market to shift the balance between their jobs and personal lives.

"A growing number of Americans are seeking work arrangements that offer greater income potential, more flexibility in work schedules and a better balance between career and family," said Thomas Donohue, president of the chamber.

The report showed one in six U.S. employees work from home at least once a week. Seventy percent of those telecommuters work for others, while 30 percent are self-employed, the chamber said, citing data from the Economic Policy Foundation.

Article here.

Chamber of Commerce report here.

Related: The Telecommuting Trend

More than 100,000 people are employed through such arrangements, and the tally grew 20% last year

Now companies like oDesk are taking the homeshoring concept beyond the call center:

Its success will depend on whether companies are willing to reshape whole businesses, such as IT, design, or writing, that are traditionally staffed at the office. It's a big risk. For one, it's a lot harder to track and monitor people working on what are often longer-term projects, many critical to a company's success, than it is to count how many calls an employee can log in an hour.

oDesk does all sorts of things to build employers’ trust:

company conducts tests and checks references

a self-policing feedback system

The bigger hurdle to scale was helping companies monitor worker productivity and time management. Companies have a hard time policing employees in the next office over, much less thousands of miles away…

To keep everyone honest, oDesk takes random screen shots of what people are working on every 10 minutes. There's also a Web cam, so employers can physically see whether someone is at their desk, and a log showing how many mouse clicks or keystrokes are made per minute. It's not meant to be unduly intrusive, but rather to give the same degree of privacy -- or lack thereof -- people find in office settings where a manager can easily peer over a shoulder.

Finally, oDesk handles all the billing and payments -- which can get tricky with overseas currency conversions. It takes an employer's credit card before anyone can be hired, and automatically cuts a check to the contractor every week unless the employer objects. Of course, it takes a healthy chunk of that, tacking on 30% to whatever price people charge for their services.

More here.

Related stuff here (bottom half of post for JetBlue’s story).

And might tax policy trip up homeshoring?

Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say “what the drivers of politicians drive”:

She then hopped in a waiting Chrysler LHS (18 mpg) -- even though her Senate office was only a block away.
…
At about the same time, House Republicans were meeting in the Capitol for their weekly caucus (Topic A: gas). The House driveway was jammed with cars, many idling, including eight Chevrolet Suburbans (14 mpg).
…
After lunchtime votes, senators emerged from the Capitol for the drive across the street to their offices.
Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) hopped in a GMC Yukon (14 mpg). Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) climbed aboard a Nissan Pathfinder (15). Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) stepped into an eight-cylinder Ford Explorer (14). Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disappeared into a Lincoln Town Car (17). Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) met up with an idling Chrysler minivan (18).

Next came Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), greeted by a Ford Explorer XLT. On the Senate floor Tuesday, Menendez had complained that Bush "remains opposed to higher fuel-efficiency standards."

Also waiting: three Suburbans, a Nissan Armada V8, two Cadillacs and a Lexus. The greenest senator was Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who was picked up by his hybrid Toyota Prius (60 mpg), at quadruple the fuel efficiency of his Indiana counterpart Evan Bayh (D), who was met by a Dodge Durango V8 (14).

More here.

So says Felix Kramer, founder of The California Cars Initiative (CalCars):

can get about 100 miles per gallon

…

In general, plug-in hybrids have much larger battery packs than standard hybrids--in prototypes, the extra batteries fill up the space where spare tires now reside--and much smaller gas motors. The batteries can be recharged by plugging the car into any wall socket.
…

But conversion won't be cheap--at least initially. California's EDrive Systems will charge around $10,000 to $12,000 to install the extra lithium batteries needed to turn a standard Prius into a plug-in hybrid when its service begins later this summer.

At that price, and with gas at $3 a gallon, it would take around 160,000 to 200,000 miles of driving to break even. As a result, conversion services today are really being sold more as a luxury option or status symbol.

That means plug-in hybrid owners can look down their noses at regular “gas guzzling” hybrids:

CalCars is working with independent inventors to bring the price of a DIY kit based around an open blueprint to about $3,000.

Article here

Rapidly escalating gasoline prices may speed the United States` transformation into a telecommuting nation, analysts say.

I think that’s overstating it, but this guy does make some good points:

'Companies will be forced to help ease the financial burden of higher gas prices or risk losing their workers to companies located closer to their homes or companies that offer primarily telecommuting.'

Once again, if we want to really expand telecommuting we’re going to have to win over more of our nation’s bosses:

A 2005 survey by Connecticut-based Business & Legal Reports asked employers what they were doing to help employees deal with high gas prices. Only 1 percent of the 499 respondents said their companies were allowing more telecommuting. And 6 percent encouraged workers to carpool or use public transportation.

Article here.

Some good news here.

I just finished submitting comments to the EPA on their proposed standards for particulate pollution. Rather than focusing on how to address the real health threats from air quality and get the most out of the rules we have in place to address them, the EPA is pursuing particulate standards that are not supported by epidemiological standards of evidence.

You can read Reason's brief comments on the proposed rules here.

In a similar vein, my colleague Joel Schwartz finds similar problems with the science in the EPA's new toxics report. In his column (here) he says

Based on EPA's own estimates, air pollution even in the "most toxic" areas of the country poses a miniscule cancer risk. More importantly, EPA's cancer risk estimates are grossly inflated, because they depend on the false assumption that chemicals pose the same per-unit cancer risks at real-world trace exposures as they do at massive laboratory exposures.

And Joel also dissects (here) the latest research in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that particulates kill mice:

However, researchers have been unable to kill animals with air pollution at levels anywhere near as low as the levels found in ambient air. As a recent review of particulate matter toxicology concluded: "It remains the case that no form of ambient PM -- other than viruses, bacteria, and biochemical antigens -- has been shown, experimentally or clinically, to cause disease or death at concentrations remotely close to US ambient levels."

All three items are related because in each case activists, some researchers, and sometime the EPA, point to dramatic health impacts only by making extreme unrealistic assumptions or dropping standards of epidemiological research.

It's all about changing our thinking. Air pollution is dramatically different from what we thought 10 years ago--we are beating it, but too many are still stuck in the rut of "we're all gonna die!" and can't shift from finding the next crisis to working on getting results from the efforts we already have going.

Reader/software guru Brad Hutchings with an interesting example of telecommuting’s productivity benefits:

I work with a guy in Kentucky who usually has evening plans, so he's done at 2pm Left Coast time. If I wake up and get started by 6am, spreading the morning chores through the morning, I can get 8 hours of collaborative time available with him. If instead I awoke at 6am to make it into the office by 8am, I would lose 10 hours a week. Working with Europe is a bigger hassle here. On standard office hours, everything with Europe has to be done by 10 am. Try getting anything done with India unless both parties have time flexibility!

Related: Satisfied workers more likely to have telecommuting option (bottom half of post)

Keep this in mind:

Almost without exception, as satisfaction rose, workers reported putting in longer hours

Some results from a MONEY magazine/Salary.com survey of 26,000 workers.

Another interesting bit:

Satisfied workers had more work-from-home options than other respondents, with only 38 percent saying telecommuting was never an option. Unhappy workers were least able to telecommute, with 70 percent reporting it was not an option.

The most stressed workers were also least able to telecommute, with only a third saying it was an option for them at work.

From a TCS Daily article of mine:

Telecommuting gives employees freedom to rearrange their work life to fit better with other aspects of their lives. Want to pick up your child from school or to exercise during the middle of the day? No problem. In fact, someone who finds it more pleasant to work out when the gym is less crowded might be more likely to stick to an exercise program.

Whole thing here.

Joel Schwartz's latest, on EPA's toxics report, in TCS Daily.

New York and California have the most toxic air in the nation, according to a new EPA report widely covered by the news media.[1] But having the most toxic air doesn't tell us much. After all, no matter how clean the air is, somebody's air has to be the worst in the country on any given measure. What we really need to know is how bad EPA claims the air is, and whether that claim is credible.
Based on EPA's own estimates, air pollution even in the "most toxic" areas of the country poses a miniscule cancer risk. More importantly, EPA's cancer risk estimates are grossly inflated, because they depend on the false assumption that chemicals pose the same per-unit cancer risks at real-world trace exposures as they do at massive laboratory exposures.

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When SUVs first emerged, SUV owners were often seen as fit soccer moms or footloose outdoor enthusiasts. But over the years, perceptions changed. Now we know (wink) that SUV owners are really terrorist-supporting defilers of the earth.

Might the public’s perception of hybrid owners be going through a similar (although less dramatic) evolution?

With politicians lobbing so many perks their way, hybrid owners were bound to develop the kind of “teacher’s pet” reputation that invites a backlash. Recently, South Park took aim at the smugness of hybrid owners. Virginia carpoolers have been griping about hybrids in the carpool lane for a while and now this:

But increasingly, hybrid owners say they feel like the victims of road rage.

Carpoolers accuse them of driving too slowly in order to maximize their fuel efficiency, and of clogging diamond lanes that were once clear.

Hybrid motorists even have a term for the ill will: "Prius backlash."

"There's a mentality out there that we're a bunch of liberal hippies or we're trying to make some statement on the environment," said Travis Ruff, a real estate agent from Newbury Park who drives a Toyota Prius. "People are a lot less friendly than when I drove a Mercedes."

Article here.

Pity the EPA, their long-running effort to protect us by mandating oxygen additives to gasoline is bust--it turns out it hurt us. MTBE poisoned the groundwater. Ethanol increases harmful emissions. We’ve known this for years, but EPA is only now getting around to pulling the plug. See the story in the LA Times.

Of course, Pres. Bush is flogging ethanol as a means to free our selves of mid-east oil. Alas, that strategy is as bust as oxygenates, and probably will take longer to kill.

Part 2 in Joel Schwartz's look at EPA new rules on particulates. The punchline:

Thus, the entire PM2.5 regulatory enterprise rests fundamentally on the results of small and inconsistent statistical associations that are likely the spurious result of publication and model-selection biases. The result is unwarranted public fear, an ever-expanding regulatory state, and large amounts of Americans’ income squandered on minute or perhaps non-existent risks.

Another nice column by Reason and AEI fellow Joel Schwartz on new air pollution regs.

Could public debate on air pollution be any more absurd? EPA proposes a new standard that would reduce allowable peak PM2.5 levels by 45 percent and that would double the national PM2.5 non-attainment rate. Yet environmentalists call this “status quo” with a straight face, health scientists claim EPA ignored their recommendations, and journalists endorse these false assessments.

Environmentalists then criticize the standa Perhaps next time environmentalists would be appeased if EPA instead delayed any actual pollution reductions until after a new standard is adopted.
rd on the grounds that it might not require adoption of any new regulations, ignoring that this could only be true if EPA had already adopted regulations sufficiently demanding to attain the new standard.

As always, Joel Schwartz's latest analysis of air quality policy is a gem.

Despite its sober tone and measured language, the Staff Paper nevertheless substantially exaggerates the health risks of ozone at contemporary U.S. levels. If anything, what has become clear over the last several years is that ozone is having, at worst, a tiny effect on Americans' health and welfare. Ironically, it is EPA's own research staff, along with their counterparts at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), who have provided much of the analysis demonstrating the mildness of ozone's public health impacts.

New Haven became the fourth city in the U-S tonight, and the only in CT, to pass an ordinance allowing free metered parking for hybrid and alternative fuel vehicle cars. Only San Jose, CA; Los Angeles, CA; and Albuquerque, NM have passed similar legislation.

Said the mayor:

"This isn't about parking, it's about public health. Eighteen percent of our kids suffer from asthma, and statewide the number is 10%.”

Stay tuned for an upcoming Privatization Watch which examines the popularly held notion that air pollution causes asthma.

Again from the mayor:

New Haven is the hybrid capital of Connecticut

Oh, so this is one of those branding campaigns.

Here’s the whole article (via The Newspaper).

Here’s my take on why it’s good for consumers to love hybrids, but not good for politicians to express their love of hybrids through policy.

UPDATE: The Grassroot Institute’s Don Newman points out that Honolulu offers free metered parking for electric cars.

The air is getting cleaner. Even the American Lung Association says so.

ALA found that the number of counties in which unhealthy air was recorded fell significantly for the first time in six years …

Now for the “but.”

"People's lives are shortened by months to years because of the air they're breathing," she said.

It’s interesting to note how news reports describe those who find fault with the ALA’s work:

Conservatives

"I wish they would do more informing and less scaring," said Ben Lieberman, a senior environment and energy policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group.

As if “advocacy” groups, “consumer rights” groups, unions, government agencies, and others that escape ideological qualifiers are not motivated by ideology.

Joel Schwartz has been on this issue for a long time, and this article by him should be read along with any other news reports on this issue.

For example:

…

The California Air Resources Board's Children's Health Study followed more than 1,000 children from ages 10 to 18 during the 1990s and reported no relationship between ozone levels and lung function. The CHS also reported that asthma incidence was 30 percent lower in areas with the highest ozone levels.

Coverage improved somewhat, but bad news is still an easier sell:

This year's most egregious entry was the Oakland Tribune's "Air pollution still abysmal in Bay Area." It would be hard to make a more ridiculous statement about the San Francisco Bay Area's air quality. The entire region complies with all of EPA's air pollution health standards and has some of the cleanest air of any large metropolitan area in the entire world.

Last fall, the Natural Resources Defense Council released an alarmist report claiming that hotter temperatures caused by global warming would speed the formation of smog, resulting in fewer healthy air days, restrictions on outdoor activities, and increased health threats to those with asthma and other respiratory troubles.

But don't worry...our friends in the free-market think tank world (including Reason Senior Fellow Joel Schwartz) smelled something fishy and have offered a response:

A comprehensive new analysis by top air quality and climate experts refutes recent claims that global warming will lead to more bad air days in more than a dozen U.S. cities. The analysis shows that the air quality in Atlanta and throughout the U.S. has dramatically improved over the last thirty years and that there is no strong link between temperature and ozone. Regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on air quality.
Results of the analysis, Air Quality False Alarm, An Analysis of the Natural Resources Defense Council's "Heat Advisory" Report, were published today by United for Jobs, The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, The John Locke Foundation and the Pacific Research Institute.

"The Natural Resource Defense Council's analysis is faulty and its conclusions are false and misleading," said Karen Kerrigan, president and CEO of the Small Business Entrepreneurship Council and United for Jobs co-chair.

According to EPA ozone monitoring data over the last 30 years ozone levels have declined even though urban temperatures have increased. On average cities have achieved a 95% decrease in the average number of "red alert" days (1-hour ozone exceedances) per year and a 75% decrease in the number of "orange" alert days (8-hour ozone exceedances). Increases in temperatures in cities is attributable to urban heat island effect, rather then global warming.

The full study is available here.

Making the air cleaner isn’t about getting people out of their cars (particularly if they’re new cars), and it isn’t about getting new car drivers to become new hybrid car drivers. It’s about targeting gross polluters.

This radio address shows Arnold gets it.

Reason did a policy study last month exploring the impact of switching cars over to hydrogen on greenhouse gas emissions. Turns out that we use so much energy to make hydrogen that emissions are at best unchanged.

A new paper by CATO looks at the same issue, with similar conclusions.

Given current technology, switching from gasoline to hydrogen-powered fuel cells would greatly increase energy consumption even if the hydrogen were extracted from water rather than from fossil fuels. That’s because it takes a tremendous amount of electricity to harvest hydrogen and to deliver it to consumers. Moreover, a transition from gasoline to hydrogen would nearly double net greenhouse gas emissions attributable to passenger vehicles, given the current fuel mix in the electricity sector.