scholarly journals Economic Valuation of Coccidioidomycosis (Valley Fever) Projections in the United States in Response to Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-123
Author(s):  
Morgan E. Gorris ◽  
James E. Neumann ◽  
Patrick L. Kinney ◽  
Megan Sheahan ◽  
Marcus C. Sarofim
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽  
The United States ◽  
Average Total Cost ◽  
Annual Average ◽  
Valley Fever ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Total Cost

AbstractCoccidioidomycosis, or valley fever, is an infectious fungal disease currently endemic to the southwestern United States. Symptoms of valley fever range in severity from flu-like illness to severe morbidity and mortality. Warming temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns may cause the area of endemicity to expand northward throughout the western United States, putting more people at risk for contracting valley fever. This may increase the health and economic burdens from this disease. We developed an approach to describe the relationship between climate conditions and valley fever incidence using historical data and generated projections of future incidence in response to both climate change and population trends using the Climate Change Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA) framework developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We also developed a method to estimate economic impacts of valley fever that is based on case counts. For our 2000–15 baseline time period, we estimated annual medical costs, lost income, and economic welfare losses for valley fever in the United States were $400,000 per case, and the annual average total cost was $3.9 billion per year. For a high greenhouse gas emission scenario and accounting for population growth, we found that total annual costs for valley fever may increase up to 164% by year 2050 and up to 380% by 2090. By the end of the twenty-first century, valley fever may cost $620,000 per case and the annual average total cost may reach $18.5 billion per year. This work contributes to the broader effort to monetize climate change–attributable damages in the United States.

United States Climate Change Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Gerrard
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Endangered Species ◽  
Traffic Safety ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
The United States ◽  
Highway Traffic ◽  
National Highway Traffic Safety

This chapter presents an overview of climate change law in the United States, given the global impact of its domestic and international climate change policies. It traces the evolution of US climate change policy under different presidents, and discusses emerging programs under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Under the CAA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues emissions standards, and under the Energy Policy Conservation Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issues Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. The chapter also describes the protection of endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA directs the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate certain species as endangered or threatened; for marine species that task falls to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

scholarly journals Determinants of Corporate Climate Change Mitigation Targets in Major United States Companies

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoyu Yin ◽  
Fei Mo ◽  
Derek Wang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Firm Growth ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽  
Absolute Intensity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Corporate Managers ◽  
Change Mitigation

Setting greenhouse gas emission target is a critical step to meet the challenge of climate change. While the debate on global and national carbon emission targets has dominated every major climate change conference, little is known about how the firms set emission targets. Using a dataset on S&P 500 companies in the United States, we investigate the determinants of firm-level climate change mitigation targets, including target adoption and target metric (intensity target vs. absolute target). We find that companies with larger size, higher growth, better innovation, weaker capital constraint, and higher government pressure are more likely to establish emission targets. Further, firm growth has a negative (positive) and significant association with the use of absolute (intensity) target. This may be due to the fact that intensity target can better accommodate growth than absolute target. Policymakers and corporate managers may resort to those determinant factors in designing climate change policies to induce desirable firm-level target-setting behaviors.

scholarly journals Establishing Climate Change Resilience in the Great Lakes in Response to Flooding

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolyn E Gallagher ◽  
Ryan K Duncombe ◽  
Timothy M Steeves
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
High Water ◽  
The United States ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Storm Events ◽  
Freshwater Resource

Over the past decade, both the average rainfall and the frequency of high precipitation storm events in the Great Lakes Basin have been steadily increasing as a consequence of climate change. In this same period, cities and communities along the coasts are experiencing record high water levels and severe flooding events (ECC Canada et al. 2018). When cities are unprepared for these floods, the safety of communities and the water quality of the Great Lakes are jeopardized. For example, coastal flooding increases runoff pollution and contaminates the freshwater resource that 40 million people rely on for drinking water (Lyandres and Welch 2012, Roth 2016). Since the Great Lakes are shared between two nations, the United States and Canada, the region is protected by several international treaties and national compacts, including the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). In order to increase climate change resiliency against flooding in the region, we recommend the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) work with Environment and Climate Change Canada to relocate the GLRI under the GLWQA in order to guarantee consistent funding and protection efforts. We additionally recommend expansion of both agreements in their scope and long-term commitments to engender cooperative efforts to protect the Great Lakes against climate change.

scholarly journals Impacts of future climate change and effects of biogenic emissions on surface ozone and particulate matter concentrations in the United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 4789-4806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. F. Lam ◽  
J. S. Fu ◽  
S. Wu ◽  
L. J. Mickley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Biogenic Emissions ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Annual Average ◽  
Future Emissions

Abstract. Simulations of present and future average regional ozone and PM2.5 concentrations over the United States were performed to investigate the potential impacts of global climate change and emissions on regional air quality using CMAQ. Various emissions and climate conditions with different biogenic emissions and domain resolutions were implemented to study the sensitivity of future air quality trends from the impacts of changing biogenic emissions. A comparison of GEOS-Chem and CMAQ was performed to investigate the effect of downscaling on the prediction of future air quality trends. For ozone, the impacts of global climate change are relatively smaller when compared to the impacts of anticipated future emissions reduction, except for the Northeast area, where increasing biogenic emissions due to climate change have stronger positive effects (increases) to the regional ozone air quality. The combination effect from both climate change and emission reductions leads to approximately a 10 % or 5 ppbv decrease of the maximum daily average eight-hour ozone (MDA8) over the Eastern United States. For PM2.5, the impacts of global climate change have shown insignificant effect, where as the impacts of anticipated future emissions reduction account for the majority of overall PM2.5 reductions. The annual average 24-h PM2.5 of the future-year condition was found to be about 40 % lower than the one from the present-year condition, of which 60 % of its overall reductions are contributed to by the decrease of SO4 and NO3 particulate matters. Changing the biogenic emissions model increases the MDA8 ozone by about 5–10 % or 3–5 ppbv in the Northeast area. Conversely, it reduces the annual average PM2.5 by 5 % or 1.0 μg m−3 in the Southeast region.

scholarly journals Synthesis of Climate Change Policy in Judicial, Executive, and Legislative Branches of U.S. Government

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Brinkmann ◽  
Sandra Jo Garren
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court System ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
The U.S

In recent years, the United States has struggled to develop a comprehensive policy for climate change and concomitant greenhouse gas emissions that addresses the current scientific thinking on the topic. The absence of any clear legislative or executive approach dominated national discussions and the court system was used to litigate a variety of issues associated with global warming. This paper synthesizes actions taken in the three branches of government prior to and immediately following the Obama election. In the Judicial branch, several branches of law have been used to force government and private parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Based on the historic greenhouse gas lawsuit, Massachusetts et al. v. the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), and under the direction of the Obama administration, the U.S. EPA has taken significant action to regulate greenhouse gases. In the legislative branch, a comprehensive energy and climate bill passed the House of Representatives and comparable and alternate energy and climate bills were debated in the Senate indicating hope for legislation in the 111th Congress. However, these bills proved to be unsuccessful, therefore leaving the U.S. EPA and the courts the only options for national climate policy in the near future.

scholarly journals Climate Policy and the United States System of Divided Powers: Dealing with Carbon Leakage and Regulatory Linkage

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Farber
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Carbon Leakage ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
State Governments

AbstractClimate change has pushed governmental authorities within the United States (US) into new routes of national and transnational policy-making. The normal route for national policy-making runs from Congress in setting policy, to the President in agency implementation, to judicial oversight and enforcement. When that route is blocked, however, federalism and the separation of powers provide some byways and detours that may still be used to make progress. State governments and the executive branch have moved into the breach left by congressional deadlock. In the absence of federal climate legislation or a formal treaty, however, constitutional challenges will predictably meet efforts to limit carbon leakage or to establish linkages between regulatory systems.These constitutional issues often involve corners of constitutional law such as foreign affairs, where doctrines are particularly murky. Solid arguments can be made in favour of state efforts to avoid leakage and create linkage, despite claims of discrimination against interstate commerce, extraterritoriality, and foreign affairs pre-emption. The Environmental Protection Agency has some statutory authority to deal with leakage, and the President seems to have authority to pursue linkage through executive agreement. Thus, both states and the executive branch should have room to deal with transboundary implications of climate policies. Although the deadlock in Congress regarding climate change may be unusually severe, these modes of response may also be important for other kinds of transnational activity by US state governments and the national executive.

scholarly journals An Attack on the Separation of Powers? Strategic Climate Litigation in the Eyes of U.S. Judges

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8335
Author(s):  
Jasmina Nedevska
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Research Plan

Climate change litigation has emerged as a powerful tool as societies steer towards sustainable development. Although the litigation mainly takes place in domestic courts, the implications can be seen as global as specific climate rulings influence courts across national borders. However, while the phenomenon of judicialization is well-known in the social sciences, relatively few have studied issues of legitimacy that arise as climate politics move into courts. A comparatively large part of climate cases have appeared in the United States. This article presents a research plan for a study of judges’ opinions and dissents in the United States, regarding the justiciability of strategic climate cases. The purpose is to empirically study how judges navigate a perceived normative conflict—between the litigation and an overarching ideal of separation of powers—in a system marked by checks and balances.

Rethinking U.S. National Security after Covid19

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Bilmes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Emerging Diseases ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
Federal Spending ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Military

AbstractThe United States has traditionally defined national security in the context of military threats and addressed them through military spending. This article considers whether the United States will rethink this mindset following the disruption of the Covid19 pandemic, during which a non-military actor has inflicted widespread harm. The author argues that the US will not redefine national security explicitly due to the importance of the military in the US economy and the bipartisan trend toward growing the military budget since 2001. However, the pandemic has opened the floodgates with respect to federal spending. This shift will enable the next administration to allocate greater resources to non-military threats such as climate change and emerging diseases, even as it continues to increase defense spending to address traditionally defined military threats such as hypersonics and cyberterrorism.

Stress Testing to Assess Recovery from Extreme Events

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. John Plodinec
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Stress Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Potential Benefits

Abstract Over the last decade, communities have become increasingly aware of the risks they face. They are threatened by natural disasters, which may be exacerbated by climate change and the movement of land masses. Growing globalization has made a pandemic due to the rapid spread of highly infectious diseases ever more likely. Societal discord breeds its own threats, not the least of which is the spread of radical ideologies giving rise to terrorism. The accelerating rate of technological change has bred its own social and economic risks. This widening spectrum of risk poses a difficult question to every community – how resilient will the community be to the extreme events it faces. In this paper, we present a new approach to answering that question. It is based on the stress testing of financial institutions required by regulators in the United States and elsewhere. It generalizes stress testing by expanding the concept of “capital” beyond finance to include the other “capitals” (e.g., human, social) possessed by a community. Through use of this approach, communities can determine which investments of its capitals are most likely to improve its resilience. We provide an example of using the approach, and discuss its potential benefits.

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