Environmental Economics

Yet more evidence that Captain Planet is an idiot

"Captain Planet, he's our hero,Gonna take pollution down to zero."  As I tell my intro classes (econ and environment), "If you want zero pollution...stop breathing."  Looks like I might soon have the support of the Vatican.  But not for the reason you think.

In the 530-plus years since he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, the Renaissance artist’s famous frescoes have been dealt a fair share of abuse. They’re dusty, they’re dirty, and they’re constantly being damaged by humidity, carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Now, the head of the Vatican Museums, Antonio Paolucci, is warning that, if new air conditioning and air purifying systems that are being installed at the facility don’t significantly cut the pollution levels in the chapel, he will have no choice but to limit the number of tourists who visit the site. As it stands, more than five million people visit the Vatican every year, with more than 20,000 people a day stopping in the Sistine Chapel to view Michelangelo’s masterpiece. That number is up more than three-fold in the last 30 years.

“Such a crowd ... emanates sweat, breath, carbon dioxide, all sorts of dust,” Paolucci told Italian newspaper La Republica in 2010. “This deadly combination is moved around by winds and ends up on the walls, meaning on the artwork.”

via news.yahoo.com

Externalities suck.

Daily Demand and Supply: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride

According to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) “February 2011 Status Report,” General Motors was supposed to produce and sell 120,000 Chevrolet Volts in 2013 to keep pace with the president’s goal.

However, despite a $7,500 federal tax credit and a price drop in August, GM only managed to sell 16,760 Volts during the first three quarters of this year.

That pace is just barely ahead of the 15,000 Volts DOE predicted would be on the nation’s highways in 2011, and far below the department’s 120.000 goal for 2013 even though the Detroit automaker loses up to $49,000 on each Volt it manufactures.

via cnsnews.com

My analysis:

 

Maybe now we can get back to fussing about the social cost of carbon

I'll be watching Fox News tonight to try to get a handle on the benefits of the partial government shutdown. I'm hoping the bennies are more than $12-$24 billion:

Even with the shutdown of the United States government and the threat of a default coming to an end, the cost of Congress’s gridlock has already run well into the billions, economists estimate. And the total will continue to grow even after the shutdown ends, partly because of uncertainty about whether lawmakers might reach another deadlock early next year.

A complete accounting will take months once the government reopens and the Treasury resumes adding to the country’s debt. But economists said that the intransigence of House Republicans would take a bite out of fourth-quarter growth, which will affect employment, business earnings and borrowing costs. The ripple from Washington will be felt around the globe. ...

The two-week shutdown has trimmed about 0.3 percentage point from fourth-quarter growth, or about $12 billion, the forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers, based in St. Louis, recently estimated. Standard & Poor’s is more pessimistic, estimating that the shutdown will cut about 0.6 percent off inflation-adjusted gross domestic product, equivalent to $24 billion. Most analysts are predicting that growth will remain subpar, at an annual pace of 2 percent or less.

via www.nytimes.com

According to Senator Burr, it was a four week shutdown. 

If only we knew some environment-oriented college students

ENN is launching a new section called the "Collegiate Corner" for college and university students at ALL levels (undergrad, grad and PhD) to submit original work for publication. We are looking for environmental writing and scientific studies. This is an opportunity for students to become recognized in their field utilizing their own writing and work. Items considered appropriate include research papers, posters, or studies to include any of the following subjects: toxicology, land use, biology, regulatory, social, economic, health, etc. Preferred works include those that are either global in appeal or their lessons can be applied globally.

via www.enn.com

John, I'm thinking we should flood the site with CBA/valuation case studies.

Cite yourself often?

I get this kind of snark from Tim every day!

More than 125 years of encouraging economic research

From the inbox:

Dear Colleague,

We appreciate having you as a member of the American Economic Association, and are disappointed that you have let your membership expire*. In an effort to understand how we can serve members better, could you please let us know your reasons for not renewing (you can just hit REPLY, and answer with the appropriate number):

*If you have already renewed your membership, please disregard this survey.  Thank you!

1) I am no longer interested in following economics research

2) I have access to AEA journals online through my institution

3) I have retired

4) I joined primarily to be eligible to submit a paper proposal for the annual AEA meetings last year

5) I forgot to renew, but would like to continue my membership in the AEA

6) Other (if you have a moment, please elaborate)

Thank you for your participation, and best wishes.

I wanted to  answer:

6) I'm still very upset about some of the stuff that you publish in one of your journals that is anti-research. 

Instead I replied with #5.

"Alaska’s King-Crab Fleet Is Left in Port by Shutdown"

It is a shame that the partial government shutdown has some innocent casualties:

The nation’s king-crab fishing fleet, prepared to deploy off the coast of southwest Alaska for the start of a season that supplies holiday tables and restaurants around the world, was instead stalled in port on Tuesday by the federal government shutdown.

Crews and captains that in ordinary times would have been dropping their crab pots at precisely noon in Bristol Bay, 4,000 miles from the nation’s capital, were cooling their heels in places like Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, waiting, watching the news and hoping for a break.

The federal workers needed to process the permits for each boat’s catch quota were on furlough. ...

Representative Don Young, a 21-term Republican from Alaska, has been among a group of legislators trying to free up personnel to get the paperwork processed. Last week, Mr. Young, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Representative Doc Hastings of Washington, also Republicans, sent a letter to the secretary of commerce, Penny Pritzker, saying that since crab industry fees pay for federal management of the fishery, federal managers should properly be on job, not on furlough.

Mr. Young said in a telephone interview that he had tried to follow up, but that Commerce Department phones were mostly going unanswered in the shutdown.

via www.nytimes.com

The other day I suggested that there is a role for government in avoiding tragedy of the commons and I still think that. I haven't seen any angry free market environmentalist economist in the news claiming that we should just open the oceans, tragedy-style, but I might bet it has happened. Any links? I'd like to give it a read.

No pay, no play

As far as I'm concerned, this is no different than choosing not to serve a non-paying customer:

... there are numerous solutions for those still wishing to climb in Yosemite. The chief challenge lies in not leaving a vehicle parked at the trailhead. With the aid of a bicycle, or a friendly drop-off, it takes only a few moments to dash off the pavement. After a hundred feet, the granite boulders and pine forest of the high Sierra swallow you, and vertical realms await. It’s doubtful anyone will pursue.

Crossing this threshold onto publicly held wilderness that’s closed down by our government, I was reminded of an adage, from the American frontier: “When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will be free.”

via www.nytimes.com

When freedom is outlawed? I don't get it. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Just for Tim

And anyone else from Balmer:

Maryland native Scott Van Pelt has a schtick every time he invites ESPN baseball analyst (and fellow Terrapin) Tim Kurkjian onto his radio show: he closes by saying something in Ballimerese and making Kurkjian burst out into furious, high-pitched laughter.

We've compiled these moments into one supercut, which you can play above. We encourage you to go here, where ESPN has made each moment individually available, for more context. SVP's show is already one of the WWL's best products, & that they're willing to have fun with this stuff is worth everyone's appreciation.

via deadspin.com

I didn't answer this poll question

Because they didn't have a "nothing (period)" or "nothing (it is none of my business)" or "write an awesome blog post about it" categories:

Another installment of Ask Retraction Watch:

I reviewed an article for two different journals that presented data from a large non-public data set.  A previous publication from the same group had presented findings on the same topic from the dataset, but the new paper didn’t mention these previous analyses. The new paper had more detailed analyses. As a reviewer, both times I said that they really needed to mention that there were previous analyses of the same topic from the same dataset and say what their new analysis was contributing (not much!).  Both times they basically refused and it got rejected. Then it got published in another journal (I didn’t review it this time) still without citing the previous analyses from the same data set.

Take our poll, and comment below.What should a reviewer do in a case like this?

• Contact the journal that published the paper privately about these concerns.  58.75%  (151 votes)
• Write a letter to the editor for publication.  25.68%  (66 votes)
• Nothing. Reviews are confidential.  9.34%  (24 votes)
• Nothing, since the authors did not make any actual error (16 votes)

via retractionwatch.wordpress.com

What would you do about this shady behavior?

Having written more than one paper out of the same data set more than once, with some of the marginal contributions more marginal than others, I think you should always self-cite if the papers are related. 

As I've repeated here many times (stop reading if you are tired of this story!), I once had a paper rejected from the AJAE after self-citing a previous paper using different data and different theory but had it rejected because a referee accused us of self-plagiarism. We explained all this to the editor but he chose the safest option.