Environmental Economics

Quote of the day

Tim: You saw this one coming, right?

"Basically, we're a department of teachers," Haab said. "We teach students, we teach other faculty, and we teach the community."

Blah, blah, blah

From our college newsletter (Continuum):

When Tim Haab took the reins as chair of the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics on October 1, 2010, he knew he'd face some challenges-- challenges "that most everyone in higher education is facing these days." The department had shrunk from 31 to 21 faculty members in recent years, but Haab credits former chair Alan Randall for ably handling budget cuts through attrition instead of layoffs.

Now, the top-ranked department (No. 1 in Agricultural and Resource Economics according to the National Research Council) has hired two new faculty members and is in the process of bringing in one more.

"Basically, we're a department of teachers," Haab said. "We teach students, we teach other faculty, and we teach the community."

It goes on.  And it was accompanied by a picture (I added the commentary).

 

A simple tale of bold adventure

Monopoly - Official Trailer

From the Funny or Die Newsletter:

Monopoly - Official Trailer - watch more funny videos

One more reason to love regressions*

It's not FRIDAY, FRIDAY**, but I can't pass up a 'good news about alcohol consumption' story: 

...a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one's risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers. (See pictures of booze under a microscope.)

Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies. Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don't have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems.

But why would abstaining from alcohol lead to a shorter life? It's true that those who abstain from alcohol tend to be from lower socioeconomic classes, since drinking can be expensive. And people of lower socioeconomic status have more life stressors — job and child-care worries that might not only keep them from the bottle but also cause stress-related illnesses over long periods. (They also don't get the stress-reducing benefits of a drink or two after work.)

But even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables — socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on — the researchers (a six-member team led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin) found that over a 20-year period, mortality rates were highest for those who were not current drinkers, regardless of whether they used to be alcoholics, second highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers.

via www.time.com

No point really.  Just pointing out that I seem to be doing everything necessary to live a long life. 

*For those not in the know, regression is a statistical technique for isolating the unique correlation between two variables (in this case, alcohol consumption and longevity) while factoring out or controlling for the correlation of other confounding variables (in this case "socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on").

**My two teenage daughters made me (I had no choice in teh matter of course) watch this yesterday.  I dare you to try to get it out of your head after watching.

Freak: “Conspicuous Conservation” and the Prius Effect

Colllin Campbell:

This month, Toyota sold its one millionth Prius hybrid in the U.S. In 10 years, this strange-looking vehicle with the revolutionary engine has claimed a spot among the best-selling cars. Pretty impressive. But are all those Prius owners thinking mainly about better mileage and a smaller carbon footprint, or is there another incentive at work? More broadly: when people make environmentally sound choices, how much are those choices driven by the consumers’ desire to show off their green bona fides?

Two young economists, Steve and Alison Sexton, have been looking into this question. (Not only are the Sextons twins, but their parents are also economists, and Steve is a competitive triathlete.) The result is an interesting draft paper called “Conspicuous Conservation: The Prius Effect and WTP [Willingness to Pay] for Environmental Bona Fides.” When you drive a Prius, the Sextons argue, there’s a “green halo” around you. You make new friends; you get new business opportunities. In an especially “green” place like Boulder, Colo., the effect could be worth as much as $7,000.

The Sextons focused on the distinctive design of the Prius — which was no accident. Honda, Ford, Nissan and other car makers sell hybrids, but you can’t pick them out on the road (the Civic hybrid, for instance, looks just like a Civic). The Prius is unmistakable. It marks whoever is driving it as someone who cares about the environment; it’s an act of “conspicuous conservation,” an update of Thorstein Veblen’s “conspicuous consumption.” Here’s how Steve Sexton describes it:

SEXTON: A sort of “keeping up with the Joneses”-type concept but applied to efforts to make society better. I will be competing with my neighbors to donate to a charity, for instance, or to reduce energy conservation or environmental impacts.

via www.freakonomics.com

I'd like to buy the world a Coke*

A reader who works as a research scientist but wishes his name to be kept anonymous — “to avoid any hate mail coming my way” — writes in with a fervent couple of questions.

Being from Europe I have always wondered why Americans drink so much soda. Given the associated health risks, which has been discussed on your website and many others, it just seems ludicrous. Besides this obvious question and the associated health care costs, I was wondering how much energy is actually being wasted each year by making all the ice being added to the sodas. Could you estimate how many metric tons of carbon dioxide are being senselessly generated for making the ice which is added to the beverages which are eroding public health and public funds?

Anyone out there who can tell our curious, timid scientist a) why Americans drink so much soda; and b) how environmentally-unfriendly all that ice is? Back-of-the-envelope calculations welcome.

via www.freakonomics.com

a) Because it's yummy. They're called preferences. They drive many decisions. Americans aren't known for self-denial (or self restraint).

b) I have no idea how much CO2 it takes to make ice (Google didn't give me a 10 second answer and I have no patience). So I'll give a Google-based unreliable back-of-the-envelope answer to a different question. There are about 5 grams of CO2 per liter of carbonated beverage (apparently it varies by type. As evidence I submit that Diet Coke makes me burp. Coke doesn't). There are 1.057 quarts per liter so that makes 5.285 grams of CO2 per quart. The average self-indulging American drinks about 150 quarts of soda per year. That's 792.75 grams of CO2 per American per year. With 311,206,613 Americans around as of 8:04 AM on 4/21/2011, that's 272,000 tons (short tons--you know, the ugly American ton) of CO2 per year emitted from soda consumption in the U.S. Assuming of course that all of it is released in the form of fizzy bubbles or burps. This is only the CO2 in the soda itself. No accounting for the CO2 used to make the soda, or the ice.

Math corrections welcome.

*

Tourism demand

A year after the worst oil spill in U.S. history, tourism is returning to the Gulf Coast. Yet some businesses that rely on tourists ... continue to struggle. And local tourism officials worry that memories of the spill, combined with rising gasoline prices and a still-shaky national economy, could forestall a return to boom times.

via www.usatoday.com

In other words, the factors affecting tourism demand on the gulf coast cover the elements of the standard recreation demand model:

(1) x = f(p,y,q)

where x is trips, p is the cost of trips (i.e., price), y is income and q is the quality of trips. Memories of the oil spill affects quality expectations, gas prices affect travel costs and the health of the national economy affects income expectations.

"Obama Marks Anniversary of BP Disaster"

I burned one of my NYTimes freebies on this one, from the blog formerly known as Green:

One year ago today, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico because of a runaway oil well. The accident killed 11 rig workers and spilled nearly five million barrels of oil into the gulf, the biggest maritime oil spill in United States history.

The effects of that spill continue to linger, as you can see in our recent coverage. Entire communities, including fishermen and rig workers, have been affected.

In a statement Wednesday, President Obama said that his administration had made progress in cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico and improving regulation of offshore oil drilling. But, he acknowledged, “the job isn’t done.”

The president said that 2,000 workers are still cleaning marshes and beaches and performing other tasks to mitigate the damage from the accident. He also noted that federal officials continue to monitor the safety of seafood harvested from the gulf. On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that all waters of the gulf have now be reopened to fishing. At the height of the spill, millions of acres of gulf waters were off-limits to fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen, costing millions of dollars in lost revenues. (The process of claiming damages from BP has been troublesome for many of those affected.)

Even as the president listed the extensive response efforts and tougher regulations that will now be imposed on deep-water drilling, he also said that he plans to expand domestic oil and gas development as part of an overall energy strategy of reducing oil imports by a third by 2025.

via green.blogs.nytimes.com

I remember where I was, attending an SSC meeting in Charleston, SC. I remember the explosion was treated like any human disaster ... we didn't realize what sort of environmental effect there might be.

"Storm damage could add up to millions"

It already has:

The vicious system that killed at least 22 people and injured at least 130 in [North Carolina] also damaged or destroyed at least 800 homes and left thousands facing the possibility of another night in the dark.

In Bertie County, officials estimated property damage at $2.5 million, not including infrastructure damage and the loss of cropland.

Damages to buildings in Wake County alone were estimated at between $65 million and $100 million.

via www.newsobserver.com

If 22 doesn't sound like a lot, valuing the lives lost at the EPA's $7 million yields $154 million. Two more deaths were added today.