Environmental Economics

My guess is the probability this will change a denier's opinion is 0.00001%*

Scientists announced Monday that human-caused climate change contributed to and/or amplified nine of 2013's most extreme weather events, making one of the most definitive statements yet on the direct link between individual weather extremes and human-induced climate change.

In a new report released in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) and organized by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 20 different groups of scientists studied how 16 extreme weather events came to fruition in 2013. In their analyses, the different groups conducted independent peer-reviewed scientific studies on the same events with the hope of sorting out human influences from natural variation in climate and weather.

The report found strong evidence that human-caused climate change -- particularly the burning of fossil fuels -- amplified temperature related events, including five heat waves across the globe. Less compelling evidence linked humans to the drought in California. On the other hand, the report found no link between humans and Winter Storm Atlas, which dumped up to 55 inches of snow on South Dakota last October, heavy rain in Colorado that flooded more than a dozen cities in and around the Denver metro area and heavy rain and flooding events in Europe.

The scientists hope that the report will help bridge the gap between the public, which sometimes incorrectly correlates weather events with climate change, and the science community, which looks to provide a scientific foundation to the link between the two.

via www.weather.com

*and that makes me sad. Not because they don't believe in climate change, but because they don't believe science.

UPDATE: Here is the headline Drudge used for the same story: "No clear link between drought and 'global warming'"

There's nothing funny about the AER

The Chronicle has an article today on the lack of humor in scholarly journals:

Stephen Heard once wrote a paper about how pollen spreads among the flowers of a certain endangered plant. In it he speculated that the wind might play a role by shaking loose the pollen. To support his point, he cited "Hall et al., 1957"—a reference to the songwriters of the Jerry Lee Lewis hit "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On." But a reviewer nixed Heard’s little joke. "Although I appreciated the levity of the reference," he wrote, "I think it is not appropriate for a scientific publication."

So is levity ever appropriate in a scientific publication? Mr. Heard, a professor of biology at the University of New Brunswick, thinks so, and inan essay titled "On whimsy, jokes, and beauty: can scientific writing be enjoyed?"—published in the always hilarious Ideas in Ecology and Evolution—he bemoans the buttoned-up super-seriousness of most published research, noting that amusing moments in the literature are "unusual enough that finding one is like sighting a glow-throated hummingbird or a Salt Creek tiger beetle: beautiful, but rare, tiny, and glimpsed in passing."

That is unfortunate, Mr. Heard believes, not because research papers can or should be laugh-a-minute, but because moments of lightness remind readers that this paper, like all papers, was written by an actual person, or several actual people, attempting to communicate an idea to other people. ...

I asked editors at several prominent journals what they thought of Mr. Heard’s thesis and whether there were any examples from their own fields. "The record is very sad," wrote Andrew Abbott, editor of theAmerican Journal of Sociology, via email. "Sociology is a largely humorless field, unfortunately." ...

You might imagine there'd be more humor in the humanities, but it's not so, according to Robert Caserio, an editor at the Journal of Modern Literature. "There aren't enough Mark Twains among us," Mr. Caserio complained.

I also contacted Penny Goldberg, a professor of economics at Yale University and editor of the American Economic Review, to ask if she could think of any joke, any tiny moment of amusement, one solitary witticism that has passed across her desk. Anything, even if it was rejected.

Could it have hurt Dr. Goldberg to point out Economic Inquiry (maybe no one at Yale knows the journal exists?)? Here is the comment that I left:

The well-respected Economic Inquiry journal has a "miscellany" section: "A 'Miscellany' section is available in Economic Inquiry and intended for humor and curiosities. Economic Inquiry has a venerable tradition in humor, dating at least to the publication of Axel Leijonhufvud’s 1973 “Life Among the Econ.” At most one paper per journal issue will be devoted to this section; please indicate on the pdf and in the cover letter when a submission is intended for this section."

So there.

I also posted the link to Yoram Bauman's list of funny economics papers. 

"President’s Drive for Carbon Pricing Fails to Win at Home"

We heart carbon pricing, wish everyone did:

President Obama stood in the chamber of the United Nations General Assembly last week and urged the world to follow his example and fight global warming. But a major new declaration calling for a global price on carbon — signed by 74 countries and more than 1,000 businesses and investors — is missing a key signatory: the United States.

The declaration, released by the World Bank the day before Mr. Obama’s speech at the United Nations Climate Summit, has been signed by China, Shell, Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola. It calls on all nations to enact laws forcing industries to pay for the carbon emissions that scientists say are the leading cause of global warming. ...

Although the nonbinding World Bank declaration is meant largely as a show of resolve ahead of a 2015 climate summit in Paris, it signals the broadest, most explicit effort to date of world leaders and financial institutions to push all nations to enact new taxes on old forms of energy. The declaration notes that governments can either directly tax carbon pollution or create market-based cap-and-trade systems, which force companies to buy government-issued pollution permits. ...

In order to avoid more opposition from conservatives, Mr. Obama and other top administration officials no longer call publicly for a national price on carbon. But they have nonetheless signaled their support for international and state efforts. ... The Obama administration has also enacted a policy signaling its readiness to price carbon should the politics of Congress ever shift: a metric it calls “the social cost of carbon,” designed to account for the cost of one ton of carbon dioxide pollution. Mr. Obama’s economists have determined the cost to be $37 a ton. Secretary of State John Kerry, a longtime advocate of government policy to fight climate change — and the chief author of the failed 2010 cap-and-trade bill in the Senate — last week told a meeting of the Major Economies Forum that “when it comes to climate change, we know exactly what it takes to get the job done.”

“On carbon pricing, there’s a perfect storm taking place,” said Robert N. Stavins, director of the environmental economics program at Harvard. “There is increasing recognition that approaches that have been taken in the past haven’t worked, and that the only way one can affect the hundreds of millions of decisions is through price signals.”

via www.nytimes.com

For the newbies, here is our primer: http://www.env-econ.net/carbon_tax_vs_capandtrade.html

While I'm busy, enjoy the following PSA from Jon Stewart

I'm stuck in Adminiland (trust me it's a real place and a good excuse for my sparsity in posting lately).  Besides, sometimes Jon Stewart just says it better...enjoy if you have 10 minutes.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

 

 

Local foodies can't park

"7.1 Billion Demonstrate In Favor Of Global Warming"

America's finest news source:

In an overwhelming show of support for dangerously escalating temperatures, 7.1 billion people from nearly every nation on earth staged massive demonstrations yesterday in favor of global warming. “Whether they were sitting in their living rooms, watching football at a bar, or just driving somewhere, a sizable portion of the world let its support for climate change be heard loud and clear,” said environmental policy expert Janet Purvis, adding that the protest that began in the morning never lost steam at any point throughout the day. “This should serve as a wake-up call to officials around the world that the factors contributing to global warming are real, important, and must be protected at any cost.” At press time, the 7.1 billion protesters were reportedly making plans to stage similar rallies every day for the foreseeable future.

via www.theonion.com

What they said

Mark Thoma:

Robert Stavins:

Climate Realities: ...It is true that, in theory, we can avoid the worst consequences of climate change with an intensive global effort over the next several decades. But given real-world economic and, in particular, political realities, that seems unlikely..., let’s look at the sobering reality.

The world is now on track to more than double current greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere by the end of the century. This would push up average global temperatures by three to eight degrees Celsius and could mean the disappearance of glaciers, droughts in the mid-to-low latitudes, decreased crop productivity, increased sea levels and flooding, vanishing islands and coastal wetlands, greater storm frequency and intensity, the risk of species extinction and a significant spread of infectious disease.

The United Nations has set a goal of keeping global temperatures from rising by no more than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. ... Meeting this goal would require a worldwide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 40 to 70 percent by midcentury, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s an immense challenge. ...

Of course, the political climate in the United States presents its own challenges. It will require immense effort — and profound good fortune — to find political openings that can resolve the debilitating partisan divide on climate change. But if destructive politics have been at the heart of the problem, the best hope may be that creative politics and leadership can help provide a solution.

He also talks about the cost of climate change (saying it will be large), as do Peter Dorman  (in response to Paul Krugman) and John Quiggin. See also Scientists Report Global Rise in Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

via economistsview.typepad.com

"High Seas Closure Public Comments"

From the UCSB Bren School of ES & M:

In March we told you about a paper written by Bren professor Chris Costello and former Bren School post-doc and now assistant professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Crow White. In it, the authors suggested that closing the high seas to fishing might be the best way to allow stocks of migratory fish in international waters to recover.

The paper has generated a great deal of interest, and the U.S. Dept of Commerce is now seeking public comment after being petitioned to make a rules change that would require NOAA to adopt the proposal.

Follow the links below if you would like to add your voice to the conversation. The comment period is open until Sept. 22.

Read the paper.

Access the public comment site.

via www.bren.ucsb.edu

Hat tip: Laura Grant

Friday beer post: "Economics paper retracted for plagiarism after citing its twin"

Ooops! wrong title (sigh) ...

As we’ve pointed out before, economics and business journals have few retractions compared with the other academic literature. Opinions vary on why this is, but the fact that only a few journals have plagiarism policies can’t help.

Research Papers in Economics, or RePEc, an organization that maintains a database of economics papers, however, thoroughly investigates accusations of misconduct. A RePEc report, which indicated that the plagiarists were polite enough to cite the original paper, was used in the notice as evidence for a retraction in Economic Modelling.

Here’s the notice for “Retraction notice to “Analysis of nonlinear duopoly game with heterogeneous players”:

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).

This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.

This paper has been removed on the grounds of plagiarism. This case was investigated by the REPEC Plagiarism Committee and plagiarism was confirmed. The complete plagiarism case is described athttp://plagiarism.repec.org/zhang-da-wang.html.

Original article details: Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Volume 320, 15 March 2003, pages 512–524.

The paper has been cited 42 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the text from the plagiarism committee’s report:

via retractionwatch.com

Two lessons:

• Don't cite your paper A in paper A'
• or, if you do, Don't post either paper on RePEc

Wrong title, unless you're the author of the retracted paper. Then, "my advice to you is start drinking heavily."

MR: A Guide and Advice for Economists on the U.S. Junior Academic Job Market

Tyler Cowen:

That is a new paper (pdf) by John Cawley, here is the abstract:

This guide, updated for the 2014-15 job market season, describes the academic market for new Ph.D. economists and offers advice on conducting an academic job search. It reports findings from published papers, describes practical details, and provides links to internet resources. Topics addressed include: preparing to go on the market, applying for academic jobs, the AEA’s new electronic clearinghouse for the job market, signaling, interviewing at the ASSA meetings, campus visits, the secondary market scramble, offers and negotiating, diversity, and dual job searches.

Here is some of the good news from the paper itself:

National Science Foundation data indicate that Ph.D. economists have the lowest unemployment rate (0.9%) of any doctoral field,
as well as one of the highest median salaries of any doctoral field. Finally, the vast majority of people are happy with the outcome of their search. Of the new Ph.D. economists in 2001-02, 94% reported that they liked their jobs very much or fairly well (Siegfried and Stock, 2004).

For the pointer I thank Bruce Bartlett.

via marginalrevolution.com