Into the Details

Jakob & Irma Ehrlich My father’s grandparents Jakob and Irma (my great-grandparents) lived in Austria in the 1900s. Jakob Ehrlich was a well established lawyer and politician, known for helping Jews in a bigoted society, and was prominent in the Zionist movement which led to the creation of Israel 10 years after his death. In 1938, the Austrian Nazi Government raided their home while they were out...

Trump has claimed that the 2024 US Presidential election was rigged. In this post, I want to take that at face value, analyze the results shared by people looking for election fraud, and understand the context of election fraud at large. The scary part – perhaps even crazy-making – is that to a layman there does appear to be fraudulent data patterns. Understanding them fully, and what they mean (t...

For many people wanting to electrify something in their home - be it a car, water heater, or something else - there remains a burning question: do I do it now, or wait for my appliance to fail? The simplest way to answer this is by looking at the ratio of new pieces of equipment made in the world, and making sure as many of those are the clean version as possible.  I.e., the way to reduce the most...

Six months ago, as my town was reviewing its town plan, I delivered a passionate (but somewhat limited in effect) public comment asking them to address climate change in our upcoming town plan. As projects wrapped up in the ensuing months, I had more time to think about how we as a town can be proactive in doing our part to prevent climate change, and I kept coming to the same conclusion - limit t...

From growing up on a small farm in upstate NY, I have vivid memories of holding the blow-torch for my dad on a plumbing project when I was probably 10 years old.  He did all the work on the house himself (with the occasional help from an offspring), and so when it came time to electrify my house, I decided to DIY it as well.  Here's how it went. The Stove We have a propane stove.  Perhaps some lov...

Six months ago I woke up at four AM, unable to sleep due to an overabundance of worrying about emissions.  That became a blog post on carbon pricing systems which taught me that there are more than sixty national & regional programs which exist in the world today.   Through writing that post I also discovered Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which exists to forward carbon pricing programs in the U.S.  The...

Hello! Welcome back to Into the Details. When I first started this blog, I did not have a clear single idea of how I wanted to be spending my time. But I figured if I tried enough different things, one clear motivating concept would show up – and it has. Over the past few posts I’ve enjoyed researching and writing about climate & energy. What I’ve enjoyed even more has been the numerous one-on-one...

Welcome to Into the Details. My name is Peter Ehrlich, and in this post, I talk about when climate change became “real” for me, before going in depth on my everyday experience in 2022 as an EV driver, and how I carbon-offset flights. I wrap up with a related note on policies of austerity, and how the concept updated the way I understand the world. In the following posts, I’ll talk about decarboniz...

In Part I of this series , I talked about the European Union, their moderating effect upon Ukrainian corruption, and their carbon tax implemented as an Emissions Trading System about 10 years ago. Today I go on to discuss the surprisingly advanced state of carbon taxation around the world, including the US. As a reminder, ETS systems are a “Cap & Trade” — a budget for carbon emissions by industry....

Hello! In this post, I dive in to atmospheric carbon taxation as it exists in the world today, and what major initiatives are underway presently. Over the course or the research, I became pleasantly surprised with the extent in which systems are in place, and the rate of growth evidenced — mostly outside the U.S..  As the European Union has for a long time had the world's most extensive Carbon Tax...

Discussing solar installation in New York state - economics, policy, and planning This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pehrlich.substack.com