Environmental Economics

And this blog could very well be exhibits A, B, and C...case closed.

Ummm...this:

"People are getting dumber. That's not a judgment; it's a global fact. In a host of leading nations, IQ scores have started to decline."

Daily Demand and Supply: Bill Nye Explains the Law of Demand...and Carbon Pricing, MFers.

Warning:  NSFW (Unless you work at a University and part of your job is to watch stuff like this and post it on a blog).

The highlights of this have been around all week, but most of the clips are just Bill Nye the Science Guy saying "motherf***ers.   But this segment on Last Week Tonight really does a nice job of simply explaining how Carbon Pricing works.  If you don't want to watch the whole thing, just fastforward to the 9:27 mark or so, and sit back and enjoy.

Bill Nye explains the Law of Demand from 10:21 to 10:37.

Now if I can just figure out how to use this in class without trigger warnings.

Quote of the day

Tim Haab on "[EPA's] rejiggered science advisory board stocked with industry types just killed three committees it has traditionally relied on":

“The message was a surprise,” Timothy Haab, an environmental economist at Ohio State University who was on the economics committee, told Earther. “I fear that losing the advisory committees could jeopardize the objectivity of the science used in making economically sound environmental decisions.”

Source: The EPA Just Killed Three Expert Advisory Committees

Background: There is no longer an Environmental Economics Advisory Committee at the EPA

At What Cost? Legislators come up with solutions to Harmful Algal Blooms. Environmental Economists come up with cheaper solutions.

The Legislature of the State of Ohio is currently considering legislation to reduce Phosphorous loadings into Lake Erie by 40%.  This is a good thing, as reducing Phosphorous going into Lake Erie will reduce the incidence and impact of Harmful Algal Blooms in the Western Lake Erie Basin.  

The proposed legislation establishes a Clean Lake 2020 plan that includes:

A significant new Clean Lake Capital Fund that may appropriate up to $100 million per year for five years for both Lake Erie algae reduction, and agricultural best practices.  Funding may include establishing facilities to improve manure application processes, projects to reduce open lake disposal of dredged materials, funds to local governments for water quality-based green infrastructure, water management projects to help reduce nutrient and sediment runoff impacting the lake and other strategies.

A new Soil and Water Support Fund, with some of the funding provided directly to soil and water conservation districts to assist farmers in soil testing, nutrient management plans, installing edge of field drainage devices, encouraging inserting of nutrients (subsurface placement), and agreed to conservation methods that may include riparian buffers, filter strips and cover crops.

To the casual observer, this all looks good.  The proposed bill has widespread support among agricultural groups, and local and state authorities. As one of the bill's sponsors notes:

“These are not brand new ideas, just a greater sense of urgency to implement them,” Arndt said.  “There appears to be widespread agreement with state officials, environmental and agriculture groups, tourism advocates and business leaders that many of these strategies will make a big difference.”

And he is right, these strategies could make a big difference. 

But as economists we are trained to ask, 'At what cost?' 

What should a reviewer do when the journal increases the costs of providing a review?

It has gone down something like this:

1. Get a review assignment from a journal
2. Am unable to login to the journal website to retrieve the paper
3. Find out that the journal has created two accounts for me
4. Journal sends me the paper to review via email
5. Can't login to submit my review
6. I submit my review via email
7. Wait and try to enjoy life and work
8. I receive an invitation to review the revised paper
9. [Today] I'm now ready to submit my review
10. Forgetting my stupid password I attempt to receive it (see below)
11. Rinse, repeat ...

I drove to Charleston, SC today and listened to R.E.M. the whole dang way

I'm here:

February 6 & 7, 2018

Socio-Economic Panel
Crowne Plaza Hotel
4381 Tanger Outlet Boulevard
North Charleston, SC  29418

Briefing Book 

Webinar Registration 

February 6, 2017, 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM 

February 7, 2017, 8:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Public Comment

Click here to submit public comment on SEP agenda items

Click here to read what others have already said

Note: I listened to Spotify's "This is R.E.M." playlist for about 4 hours. Once that ran out of songs I listened to Radio Free Europe and, my favorite album, Reckoning (1984) to further remind me of my college and grad school days. 

The Interagency Working Group has already provided the social cost of carbon estimate using "the best available science and economics"

Published n Science on August 18, 2017 (Vol. 357, Issue 6352, pp. 655):

In March, President Trump's Executive Order 13783 disbanded the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) (1). IWG developed estimates for federal agencies to use in cost-benefit analyses of climate policies. IWG's most recent central estimate was $50 in global damages per ton of carbon dioxide, based on year 2020 emissions, converted from 2007 to 2017 dollars (2). Trump's Executive Order withdrew IWG's official valuations and instead instructed agencies to monetize climate effects using “the best available science and economics” (1). Yet IWG's estimates already are the product of the most widely peer-reviewed models and best available data (3). ...

The social cost of greenhouse gases should be regularly updated, especially to reflect the latest evidence about damage functions (10). Meanwhile, government and private sector analysts should continue using IWG's central estimate of $50 per ton of carbon dioxide with confidence that it is still the best estimate of the social cost of greenhouse gases.

Here is a summary of the best available science and economics: Greenstone et al., REEP (2013).

2017 Eclipse Telescope Feed [App State in Sylva, NC]

Telescope link: https://cas.appstate.edu/solar-eclipse-2017/live-streaming

Here is a link to the live commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggMtpqcrjek

My "off-campus scholarly assignment" (i.e., sabbatical) begins today

And the first thing I'll miss on-campus are the on-campus solar eclipse festivities. From the inbox:

As you are making plans for eclipse viewing today, please remember the College of Arts & Sciences has a number of safe viewing opportunities, including live streaming of the eclipse.  Festivities begin at 1pm on Sanford Mall, weather permitting.  You can see the full list of events and activities at https://cas.appstate.edu/solar-eclipse-2017.

I plan on following the live stream while I wonder if there really be life after the great tribulation (Mark 13:24).

 

From this point forward we will be known as the 'Human-Habitat Social Science' blog

An exclusive from The Guardian:

Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead.

A series of emails obtained by the Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a USDA unit that oversees farmers’ land conservation, show that the incoming Trump administration has had a stark impact on the language used by some federal employees around climate change.

Among the other recommendations:

'Climate change adaptation' is now 'resilience to weather extremes/intense weather events: drought, heavy rain, spring ponding'

'Reduce greenhouse gases' is now 'build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency'

'Sequester carbon' is now 'build soil organic matter'

'Science' is now 'Wishy-washy fake news'

I only made one of those up.