Climate Change will Increase Ozone Levels and Unravel Air Quality Regulations

Abstract Using daily data for the United States over the period 1980-2019, we estimate the impacts of temperature on ambient ozone concentrations, accounting for adaptation to climatic change. We find that even with adaptation, rises in temperature will steeply increase ozone levels by over 9 ppb on days above 25◦ C. By mid-century, we calculate that 189 additional counties 15 will be violating the air quality standards, with 33 million more residents exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone. Climate change will thus likely increase the costs of compliance with existing ambient ozone standards. In light of a recent EPA ruling that would effectively remove cobenefits of ozone precursor reductions from the cost-benefit analysis of those standards, they will be in peril, further threatening public health.

Download Full-text

Climate Change will Increase Ozone Levels and unravel Air Quality Regulations

10.21203/rs.3.rs-778902/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David Adler ◽

Antonio Bento ◽

Noah Miller ◽

Edson Severnini

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Quality ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

The United States ◽

Ambient Ozone ◽

Daily Data ◽

Ozone Precursor ◽

The Cost ◽

Ozone Levels

Abstract Using daily data for the United States over the period 1980-2019, we estimate the impacts of temperature on ambient ozone concentrations, accounting for adaptation to climatic change. We find that even with adaptation, rises in temperature will steeply increase ozone levels by over 9 ppb on days above 25◦C. By mid-century, we calculate that 189 additional counties will be violating the air quality standards, with 33 million more residents exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone. Climate change will thus likely increase the costs of compliance with existing ambient ozone standards. In light of a recent EPA ruling that would effectively remove co-benefits of ozone precursor reductions from the cost-benefit analysis of those standards, they will be in peril, further threatening public health.

Download Full-text

Climate Change Will Unravel Air Quality Regulations

10.21203/rs.3.rs-740710/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Antonio Bento ◽

David Adler ◽

Noah Miller ◽

Edson Severnini

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Quality ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

The United States ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Ambient Ozone ◽

Daily Data ◽

Ozone Precursor ◽

The Cost

Abstract Using daily data for the United States over the period 1980-2019, we estimate the impacts of temperature on ambient ozone concentrations, accounting for adaptation to climatic change. We find that even with adaptation, rises in temperature will steeply increase ozone levels by over 9 ppb on days above 25◦C. By mid-century, we calculate that 189 additional counties will be violating the air quality standards, with 33 million more residents exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone. Climate change will thus put the ambient ozone standards at risk as the costs of compliance with existing standards will likely increase. In light of a recent EPA ruling that would effectively remove co-benefits from ozone precursor reductions from the cost-benefit analysis of those standards, they will be in peril.

Download Full-text

A Cost Benefit Analysis for Distribution of Threatened Species Based on Climate Change

10.21203/rs.3.rs-997914/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

R. Nandhi Kesavan ◽

Latha K

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Endangered Species ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Species Traits ◽

Ecological Traits ◽

Species List ◽

Critically Endangered Species ◽

Reptile Species ◽

The Cost

Abstract Among all the threats to global diversity, climate change is the most severe cause. According to the world’s biodiversity conservation organization, reptile species are affected mostly because the biological and ecological traits of the reptiles are strongly linked with climate. To prevent species extinction, we tried to develop a decision support system that incurs the costs and benefits of reintroducing a taxon from its origin to adapt environmental conditions to conserve it from its extinction. The model was developed by applying multiple linear regressions that take the climatic variables and species traits to determine the cost and benefits for the distribution of species. The effectiveness of the model was evaluated by applying it to the Indian Black Turtle, which is an endangered species list in India evaluated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature list. The model recommends moving the species, which is endangered, to the location where it can save itself from climate change. However, the framework demonstrates huge differences in the estimated significance of climate change, and the model strategy helps to recognize the probable risk of increased revelation to critically endangered species.

Download Full-text

“Expensive” people: Consumer citizenship and the limits of choice in neoliberal publics

Communication and the Public ◽

10.1177/2057047318794683 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 190-204 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Whitney Gent

Keyword(s):

Consumer Choice ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

The United States ◽

Housing First ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Chronic Homelessness ◽

Goods And Services ◽

Consumer Citizenship ◽

The Cost

In a context of neoliberalism, decisions made for a “public” good are often articulated as what makes the most financial sense, and citizenship is exercised as a matter of consumer choice. Neoliberal theory positions choice as an unmitigated good, and as universally available when markets are deregulated and goods and services are privatized. Examining rhetorics of choice, however, illuminates the often-invisible power relations that shape choice, and makes visible the ways in which choice is conditioned by inequality. This essay attends to the cost–benefit analysis used to promote the spread of Housing First, an approach to addressing chronic homelessness in the United States. It argues that a neoliberal discourse of choice reconfigures possibilities for rhetorical citizenship by constructing “good” and “bad” consumer citizen subjectivities, constraining agency for “expensive” people while concentrating responsibility for public decision-making among “taxpayers.” These discourses thus limit membership to neoliberal publics to people with access to private resources.

Download Full-text

Averting Catastrophes: The Strange Economics of Scylla and Charybdis

The American Economic Review ◽

10.1257/aer.20140806 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 105 (10) ◽

pp. 2947-2985 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Ian W. R. Martin ◽

Robert S. Pindyck

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Catastrophic Events ◽

The Cost

Faced with numerous potential catastrophes—nuclear and bioterrorism, mega-viruses, climate change, and others—which should society attempt to avert? A policy to avert one catastrophe considered in isolation might be evaluated in cost-benefit terms. But because society faces multiple catastrophes, simple cost-benefit analysis fails: even if the benefit of averting each one exceeds the cost, we should not necessarily avert them all. We explore the policy interdependence of catastrophic events, and develop a rule for determining which catastrophes should be averted and which should not. (JEL D61, Q51, Q54)

Download Full-text

The Consequences And Public Policy Implications Of Welfare Reform: A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of The Welfare Reform Policy

Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER) ◽

10.19030/jber.v6i4.2410 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

Author(s):

Michael O. Adams ◽

Gbolahan S. Osho ◽

Crystal D. Hadnott

Keyword(s):

Welfare Reform ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Personal Responsibility ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

The United States ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Font Size ◽

Heated Debate ◽

The Cost

Welfare reform has been the recurrent subject of heated debate in the United States, culminating in far-reaching legislation in 1996.  Taking the measure of that legislation requires attention both to the broader context of which welfare policy is a part and to the merits of the 1996 law itself.  Ultimately, the success or failure of welfare reform, which evoked a great deal of partisan rhetoric, will be assessed on empirical rather than partisan grounds.  It cannot be determined merely by changes in the size of welfare caseloads.  It is crucial to any piece of legislation to analyze the cost in relations to its benefits.  Most importantly, we must ask: What has happened to the families and children who have left the welfare system?  Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is a successful legislation that needs a little troubleshooting, so it will not be the failed anti-poverty prescription

Download Full-text

Climate Change and Economics 101: Teaching the Greatest Market Failure

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11051340 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 1340 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

John Liu ◽

Yoram Bauman ◽

Yating Chuang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Market Failure ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Emission Trading ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Climate Science ◽

The United States ◽

Small Subset ◽

Pigouvian Tax

In this paper, we explore how principles of economics courses prepare undergraduate students to think about climate change. We collected a comprehensive list of twenty-seven introductory economics textbooks in the United States and analyzed their coverage of climate change. Our finding shows that not all texts touch upon climate science, and a small subset deviates from the scientific consensus on the human causes of climate change. All texts conceptualize climate change as a problem of carbon emission’s negative externalities and the preferred market-based solutions, such as emission trading and Pigouvian tax. Besides externality, some authors include various useful points of engagement through GDP (Gross domestic product) accounting, economic growth, collective action problems, cost–benefit analysis, and global inequality. In the end, we provide suggestions for economics educators to innovate the current introductory curriculum to better cope with the climate crisis.

Download Full-text

Valuing Foreign Lives and Settlements

Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis ◽

10.2202/2152-2812.1003 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 1-26

Author(s):

David A. Dana

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Stated Preference ◽

Revealed Preference ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

The United States ◽

Current Approach ◽

Implicit Assumption ◽

Benefit Analysis

AbstractCost-benefit analysis in the United States for policy and legal purposes traditionally has been highly parochial, excluding not just losses or gains of welfare to non-U.S. residents from a given policy but also excluding any losses or gains in welfare U.S. residents would experience as a result of impacts to foreigners and foreign settlements. In the climate change context, this approach has meant that cost-benefit analyses for the costs of unmitigated climate change to the United States value at zero the losses that U.S. residents will bear as a result of the direct, adverse impacts of climate change to foreign lives and settlements. This article argues that there are sound theoretical reasons to include such welfare losses in a cost-benefit analysis, and that doing so requires going beyond revealed preference data to consider stated preference surveys. The article presents the findings of internet-based surveys that strongly suggest that the implicit assumption of the current approach to cost-benefit analysis in the United States—that U.S. residents value foreign lives and settlements that may be destroyed by climate change at zero—is untenable.

Download Full-text

A new approach to measuring legislators’ activity

International Political Science Review ◽

10.1177/0192512119860258 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 41 (4) ◽

pp. 584-599

Author(s):

Osnat Akirav

Keyword(s):

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

The United States ◽

Political Systems ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Committee Chair ◽

New Approach ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Legislative Activities ◽

The Cost

How do we measure the activity of legislators? I argue that, in addition to using measures such as how many bills they pass, we must also consider activities such as parliamentary questions, early day motions, motions for the agenda and one-minute speeches. One means for doing so is Akirav’s activity scale developed in Israel. I use this scale to measure legislators’ activity in two additional political systems – the United States and the United Kingdom. I also identify the characteristics shared by the most active legislators and the least active. The findings indicate that opposition, junior and committee chair legislators are more active than other representatives. While previous studies have investigated the cost–benefit analysis in which legislators engage regarding where and how to invest their time in their legislative work, this study is the first to conduct such an analysis about both their legislative and non-legislative activities. This more complete picture reveals their incentives for engaging fully in parliamentary work.

Download Full-text

Consideration of climate change-induced corrosion by structural codes

IABSE Congress, Christchurch 2021: Resilient technologies for sustainable infrastructure ◽

10.2749/christchurch.2021.1064 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Maria Nogal ◽

Emilio Bastidas-Arteaga ◽

Helena Maria dos Santos Gervásio

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Service Life ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Industrialized Countries ◽

Problem Design ◽

The Cost ◽

New Generation ◽

The Impact

The impact of climate change on ambient temperature and relative humidity along with the present CO2 levels are speeding the corrosion process of reinforced concrete structures. The alarming cost of the associated reduction of the service life of structures, which is estimated to cost 3% to 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of industrialized countries, has put the spotlight on the importance of introducing the issue of climate change on the new generation of Eurocodes. Amongst the strategies to tackle the problem, design-phase measures seem not to be always cost- effective, nevertheless, measures during service-life are generally the most expensive. This paper discusses the potential strategies to be addressed by structural codes to tackle the problem of climate change-induced corrosion, considering aspects such as the cost-benefit analysis, viability, and the large uncertainty involved in climate change evolution.

Download Full-text