Environmental Economics

Poignant

Definition: evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret.

Example (from the RESECON listserv):

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has published a new report, 'Climate Change Indicators in the United States, 2016 (Fourth Edition)'.

‘The Earth's climate is changing. Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events – like heavy rainstorms and record high temperatures – are already happening. Many of these observed changes are linked to the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, caused by human activities. EPA partners with more than 40 data contributors from various government agencies, academic institutions, and other organizations to compile a key set of indicators related to the causes and effects of climate change.’

For a free copy, send a request to EPA’s Climate Change Indicators Team at [email protected].

Climate Change Indicators Team
Climate Change Division
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW   /   Washington, DC 20460

Background (Joe Romm):

Trump is appointing countless climate science deniers to key positions, which tells you vastly more about what he believes and what he’ll do than his latest semi-coherent ramblings. As I wrote last week, Trump’s repetition of the phrase “open mind” during his Times interview was meant to distract from his constant repetition of long-debunked denier talking points (and it worked).

Make sure you get your fee copy while you can. 

"Improvements in US Air Pollution"

Timothy Taylor:

The US government passed its first Air Pollution Control Act in 1955, but the major amendments to that law passed in 1970--including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency to administer the law--greatly expanded the federal and state enforcement efforts. The EPA has published a web report called "Our Nation's Air: Status and Trends through 2015."

It's been common since 1970 to refer to the six "criteria" air pollutants, which include carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen oxides, ozone, particulates, and sulfur dioxide. The lines on the graph, from top to bottom, show the rise since 1970 in US GDP, vehicle-miles traveled, population, energy consumption, and carbon emissions--and the fall in the overall emissions of the six criteria pollutants since 1970.

Here's more detail since 1990. On this figure, the vertical axis shows the level of various measures of the criteria air pollutants relative to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). These air pollutants are below the national standard, and falling since 1990s.

 

... In my experience, this kind of news tends to produce extreme and opposing reactions, either self-congratulatory or self-flagellatory. The self-congratulatory view points to the progress. The self-flagellatory view had no trouble pointing out shortcomings. The reduction in air pollutant emissions might have happened sooner, or at lower cost. There are hot spots of air pollution across the country where air pollution is often above these levels. The criteria pollutants don't include carbon emissions.

The self-congratulatory sometimes point to this progress as an argument that efforts toward cleaner air can be relaxed; the self-flagellatory argue that past progress is a reason to accelerate such efforts. 

 

At least for today, I'd like to step out of that dichotomy and just emphasize that economic growth in high-income countries can, at least in these important cases, happen together with outright reductions in air pollution. Given that air pollution is the world's biggest health hazard, according to the World Health Organization, this is potentially very good news.

via conversableeconomist.blogspot.com

I would add:

1. The self-flagellatory (why do I feel dirty when I type that one?) argue that past progress is a reason to continue to find economic incentive-based policies that can lower costs.
2. I'm not sure where that last concern comes from [that improving air quality will lead to reductions in economic growth]. I thought that the experience of the 1970-1990 (improving air quality correlated with positive economic growth) confirmed that improved air quality is not inconsistent with economic growth. The real concern is whether regulations that lead to improvements in air quality slow down positive economic growth (e.g., 2% growth with clean air, 3% growth with dirty air). I would say that in the short run this is so -- regulations that lead to air quality improvements slow down positive economic growth. But in the long run the health improvements have positive feedback effects (e.g., labor productivity) so that the hit to economic growth is less negative or even positive. But, as always, the bigger question is whether the benefits of air quality improvements are greater than their costs. I think that this has been shown to be the case for the U.S. in a number of studies (Freeman, 2002).

More evidence that U.S. energy production is too low [sarcasm]

From the AAA:

Drivers this year paid the second lowest gas prices for Thanksgiving since 2008, and the national average has steadily dropped days ahead of Wednesday’s OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria. During the meeting, OPEC is expected to carve out the details for a production cut which could potentially result in an increase in global oil prices, though the details of the agreement are still unclear. Today’s average price of $2.13 per gallon is down one cent per gallon for the week, seven cents over the last month and is only nine cents more compared to a year ago.

via gasprices.aaa.com

Corrigendum: "Benefit-cost analysis at the county commissioners meeting"

From October 31:

Some outreach of community-based faculty/student research:

[Watauga County] Commissioners heard from High Country Recreation representative Dr. Scott St. Clair and ASU economics professor John Whitehead about the economic benefits of a recreation center. The presentation indicated that a recreation center could generate a $36 million dollar impact on the local economy and there is a 90% chance that the benefits of such a facility would outweigh the costs. 

via www.goblueridge.net

Here is a summary of the report prepared by members of the App State Student Chapter of the National Association for Business Economics: https://business.appstate.edu/news/proposed-recreation-center-infuse-money-economy-create-other-benefits-high-country.

via www.env-econ.net

Nothing can send a shiver down one's spine like this (from the inbox):

I haven't been able to reproduce the estimate of $12.50 per month average consumer surplus from the numbers in the attached. Can you help?

My reply: 

See attached. I arrived at $526,848 which is greater than the $470,000 in the report. I'm not sure why but it is the same order of magnitude. If you find a mistake please let me know.

Here is the attachment:

DataSplash for teaching statistics

Thomas Stratmann at medium.com (Five Ways to Write a Better Essay):

It’s the end of the semester. Your term paper is due soon. You’re starting to stress about grades. Writing long essays is tiring. A major essay that can make or break your semester grade? That’s stressful and tiring.

DataSplash is here to help! Here are 5 reasons why you need need to use DataSplash to help write your essay that will get a superior grade.

#1: Get a better Grade! These Images Make Your Paper Look Great!

DataSplash takes whatever data you have and creates amazing graphics and tables. Here’s an example of a visualization for a simple difference in means:

  

Here is the PUMS subsample used for the graphs above. That difference in means test rejects the hypothesis that there is no difference in the average household income for tenants who have lived in the household less than one year compared to others.

These high quality images are perfect content for your essay. Want to stand out from the crowd and get a better grade? This is a step in the right direction.

The other four reasons are: "DataSplash Cures Writer’s Block", "DataSplash Saves Time", "It’s FREE!!" and "It Helps You Learn and Tells You What to Write in Your Essay". It took me about 10 minutes to create an account, load some data and estimate a willingness-to-pay regression model: 

 

It's not hard to imagine how much more effective DataSplash will be for teaching statistics relative to Excel. I'm going to give it a try next semester (MBA managerial economics). 

 

#HortonFire

I told a bunch of people at the SEA meetings that the fires in western NC weren't near me. Well, one started when I got back and is about 15 or so miles away. 

Sunrise over the #HortonFire. Updates will be shared after operational briefings are held. Stay tuned to https://t.co/tMLU5QZmbM. #NCFire pic.twitter.com/T4DdnEohUH

— HortonFire (@FireHorton) November 23, 2016

I think they spelled Haab wrong

I think I could confuse some people if I applied for the position of Director of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources:

Please distribute this announcement to individuals you think may be interested for the Director position of the Haub School for the Environment and Natural Resources. It is a Director position coupled with an endowed chair. 

Hoax: something intended to deceive or defraud

From CNN:

President-elect Donald Trump conceded Tuesday there is "some connectivity" between human activity and climate change and wavered on whether he would pull the United States out of international accords aimed at combating the phenomenon, which scientists overwhelmingly agree is caused by human activity.

The statements could mark a softening in Trump's position on US involvement in efforts to fight climate change, although he did not commit to specific action in any direction. During the campaign, he vowed to "cancel" the US's participation in the Paris climate agreement, stop all US payments to UN programs aimed at fighting climate change and continued to cast serious doubt on the role man-made carbon dioxide emissions played in the planet's warming and associated impacts.

 

"I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much," Trump said Tuesday in a meeting with New York Times reporters, columnists and editors. He has previously called climate change a "hoax" invented by the Chinese.

Hoax: something intended to deceive or defraud.

 

This may be the best session at the Southern meetings this weekend

A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation, 2nd edition

This one is on my Christmas list:

A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation

Editors: Champ, Patricia A., Boyle, Kevin, Brown, Thomas C. (Eds.)

• Covers the main nonmarket valuation techniques at a level appropriate for individuals who do not have a PhD in economics
• Chapters are laid out similarly with the steps to implementing each of the nonmarket valuation techniques
• The citations provide a valuable resource to fully understand the recommendations and for supporting research designs
• The 2nd edition includes updated chapters from the 1st edition as well as three new chapters:  Substitution Methods, Experimental Methods in Valuation, Reliability and Validity in Nonmarket Valuation

This is a practical book with clear descriptions of the most commonly used nonmarket methods. The first chapters of the book provide the context and theoretical foundation of nonmarket valuation along with a discussion of data collection procedures. The middle chapters describe the major stated- and revealed-preference valuation methods. For each method, the steps involved in implementation are laid out and carefully explained with supporting references from the published literature. The final chapters of the book examine the relevance of experimentation to economic valuation, the transfer of existing nonmarket values to new settings, and assessments of the reliability and validity of nonmarket values.

The book is relevant to individuals in many professions at all career levels. Professionals in government agencies, attorneys involved with natural resource damage assessments, graduate students, and others will appreciate the thorough descriptions of how to design, implement, and analyze a nonmarket valuation study. 

I would add another bullet point:

• Covers the main nonmarket valuation techniques at a level appropriate for individuals who received their PhD in economics over 25 years ago.

Here is the link: http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400771031.