Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Climate Change Vulnerabilities In The Coastal Mid-Atlantic Region, Charles Colgan, Juliano Calil, Hauke Kite-Powell, Di Jin, Porter Hoagland

Publications

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean (MARCO) has identified increased understanding of the possible effects of climate change on the socio-economic assets and systems of the region as a priority need. This is based both on recent experience studying climate change and concern for the economic values that have been placed at risk. Changes in ocean temperatures and chemistry are already affecting fisheries, while the critical marine transportation facilities of the region must now address concerns about sea level rise in addition to shifting global transportation markets. New research is showing that coastal and ocean ecosystems are already changing …

Regional Economic Vulnerability To Sea Level Rise In San Diego County, Charles Colgan, Fernando Depaolis, Shaun Richards

Publications

One of the consequences of climate change and sea level rise that has not been extensively examined is the possible damages that can be done to regional economies. Even under scenarios of relatively small sea level rise, areas historically at risk from flooding will find flooding increasing as storms increase in frequency and severity. The result will likely be temporary disruptions of business activity lasting days to weeks. Climate change and accompanying higher sea levels will mean increasing severity of flood risk that will well to areas that have been historically immune to flooding. The cumulative effect of these flood …

Three Essays On The Theory Of Environmental Regulation: Hybrid Price And Quantity Policies And Regulation In The Presence Of Co-Pollutants, Insung Son

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation contains three original essays in the economic theory of environmental regulation. The main motivations for this work are two problems: the design of greenhouse gas (GHG) policies when emissions of these gases interact with so-called co-pollutants and the design of hybrid price and quantity policies to deal with the uncertainty in the benefits and costs of controlling GHG emissions. Abstract Concerns about how best to control GHGs have generated intense interest in the co-benefits and adverse side-effects of climate policies. Efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions can reduce emissions of flow pollutants that are emitted along with CO …

Tradeable Permits For Shoreline Protection: Reshaping Regulation Under The Coastal Act For The Era Of Sea Level Rise, Charles Colgan, Sarah Newkirk

Publications

California’s coast is one of the state’s and the nation’s premier locations. Home to millions of people, as well as a great diversity of natural features and habitats, it is also a place that is disappearing from beneath our feet. The dynamic interactions of water and land have eroded much of the historic California coast, and sea level rise threatens a dramatic acceleration of this trend. Fighting erosion has led to more than ten percent of California’s shoreline (and over thirty percent in southern California) being transformed from natural to man-made structures that resist, at least for a time, the …

Climate Adaptation And Resiliency Planning For New England Communities: First Steps And Next Steps, Charles Colgan, Jack D. Kartez Ph.D., Martha P. Sheils

Publications

Hurricane Irene tearing Vermont roads and bridges apart and Superstorm Sandy ripping through coastal areas; such phenomenal events are being joined by more frequent rain, tide and wind impacts that are disrupting communities and risking property and lives. New challenges arise from weather events that are driven by a less stable climate. The key difference between what communities already plan for and climate adaptation planning is the level of uncertainty about how impacts may change in the future and the potentially enormous and devastating damages that a community may sustain. This Guide presents an overview of that task, with links …

Economic Impacts Of Climate Adaptation Strategies For Southern Monterey Bay, Kelly Leo, Sarah Newkirk, Walter Heady, Brian Cohen, Juliano Calil, Philip King, Fernando Depaolis

Publications

Local governments along Monterey Bay’s shores are undertaking a number of initiatives for which sea level rise adaptation planning is required. Governor Schwarzenegger’s 2008 Executive Order S-13-08 and the 2011 Resolution of the California Ocean Protection Council on sea level rise led to the proliferation of individual agency guidance documents (e.g., CalTrans (2011), BCDC (2011), CCC (2015)) that require emerging best available science (e.g., Pacific Institute Report (Heberger et al. 2009), NRC Report (2012)). These guidance documents stipulate that sea level rise and coastal hazards need to be considered in planning (e.g., Climate Action Compact, Climate Action Plans, Integrated Regional …

Slides: Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste, Lester Snow

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Lester Snow, Executive Director, California Water Foundation

39 slides

Charting A New Course For The Colorado River: A Summary Of Guiding Principles, Colorado River Research Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

[4] p. : color illustrations ; 28 cm.

Slides: What Does Climate Change Mean For Cold Water Fisheries, Stan Bradshaw

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

1 page "Abstract" and 8 slides

Slides: Is There A Dust Bowl In Our Future?: Projections For The Eastern Rockies And Central Great Plains, Dennis Ojima

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

Presenter: Dennis Ojima, Senior Research Scientist, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University (NREL/CSU)

30 slides

Slides: Future Water Availability In The West: Will There Be Enough?, Michael Dettinger

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

Presenter: Michael Dettinger, USGS, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA

30 slides

"with contributions from Julio Betancourt, Dan Cayan, & others"

Slides: A History Of Climate Variability And Change In The American West, Kelly T. Redmond

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

Presenter: Kelly T. Redmond, Regional Climatologist, Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC), Desert Research Institute

65 slides

Confronting Socially Generated Uncertainty In Adaptive Management, Andrew J. Tyre, Sarah Michaels

Andrew J Tyre

As more and more organizations with responsibility for natural resource management adopt adaptive management as the rubric in which they wish to operate, it becomes increasingly important to consider the sources of uncertainty inherent in their endeavors. Without recognizing that uncertainty originates both in the natural world and in human undertakings, efforts to manage adaptively at the least will prove frustrating and at the worst will prove damaging to the very natural resources that are the management targets. There will be more surprises and those surprises potentially may prove at the very least unwanted and at the worst devastating. We …

Can We Actually Calculate The Social Cost Of Carbon?, Kyle Mckay

Kyle McKay

Social cost of carbon calculations poorly integrate the risk of worse-case scenarios and their impact on social equity, primarily due to the fundamental limitations of cost-benefit analysis. Continued use of the social cost of carbon is preferable to policy that assumes no social cost to carbon emissions, but risks overconfidence in modeling and political clashes around insufficiently important regulatory changes that could impair necessary larger scale policy changes.

Quasi-Option Value Under Strategic Interactions, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a simple two-period model of irreversible investment under strategic interactions between two players. In this setup, we show that the quasi-option value may cause some conceptual difficulties. In case of asymmetric information, decentralized investment decisions fail to induce first-best allocations. Therefore a regulator may not be able to exercise the option to delay the decision to develop. We also show that information-induced inefficiency may arise in a game situation and that under certain assumptions inefficiency can be eliminated by sending asymmetric information to the players, even when the regulator faces informational constraints. Our model is potentially applicable to …

Uncertainty, Technical Change, And Policy Models, Erin Baker, Leon Clarke, Jeffrey Keisler, Ekundayo Shittu

Jeffrey Keisler

Both climate change and technical change are uncertain. In this paper we show the importance of including both uncertainties when modeling for policy analysis. We then develop an approach for incorporating uncertainty of technical change into climate change policy analysis. We define and demonstrate a protocol for bottom-up expert assessments about prospects for technologies. We then describe a method for using such assessments to derive a probability distribution over future abatement curves, and to estimate random return functions for technological investment in different areas. Finally, we show how these analytic results could be used in a variety of energy-economic models …

Materials For Presentation: Water Banks: Voluntary And Flexible Water Supplies For The Colorado River's Uncertain Future [Outline], Robert Wigington

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

4 pages.

"Robert Wigington, The Nature Conservancy"

Confronting Socially Generated Uncertainty In Adaptive Management, Andrew J. Tyre, Sarah Michaels

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

As more and more organizations with responsibility for natural resource management adopt adaptive management as the rubric in which they wish to operate, it becomes increasingly important to consider the sources of uncertainty inherent in their endeavors. Without recognizing that uncertainty originates both in the natural world and in human undertakings, efforts to manage adaptively at the least will prove frustrating and at the worst will prove damaging to the very natural resources that are the management targets. There will be more surprises and those surprises potentially may prove at the very least unwanted and at the worst devastating. We …

Battery Technology For Electric And Hybrid Vehicles: Expert Views On Prospects For Advancement, Erin D. Baker, Haewon Chon, Jeffrey M. Keisler

Management Science and Information Systems Faculty Publication Series

In this paper we present the results of an expert elicitation on the prospects for advances in battery technology for electric and hybrid vehicles. We find disagreement among the experts on a wide range of topics, including the need for government funding, the probability of getting batteries with lithium metal anodes to work, and the probability of building safe Lithium-ion batteries. Averaging across experts we find that U.S. government expenditures of $150M/yr lead to a 66% chance of achieving a battery that costs less than $200/kWh, and a 20% chance for a cost of $90/kWh or less. Reducing the cost …

Slides: Climate Change Adaptation And The Federal Lands, Robert L. Glicksman

The Past, Present, and Future of Our Public Lands: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Public Land Law Review Commission’s Report, One Third of the Nation’s Land (Martz Summer Conference, June 2-4)

Presenter: Robert L. Glicksman, J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law, George Washington University Law School (Washington, D.C.)

12 slides

Slides: The Peril Of Energy Usage, Mike Tupper

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

Presenter: Mike Tupper, Executive Vice President, Composite Technology Development, Inc.

9 slides

Slides: Energy Development Water Needs Assessment And Water Supply Alternatives And Analysis, Benjamin Harding

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

Presenter: Benjamin Harding, Principal Engineer, AMEC Earth and Environmental

15 slides

Carbon Capture And Storage: Combining Economic Analysis With Expert Elicitations To Inform Climate Policy, Erin D. Baker, Haewon Chon, Jeffrey M. Keisler

Management Science and Information Systems Faculty Publication Series

The relationship between R&D investments and technical change is inherently uncertain. In this paper we combine economics and decision analysis to incorporate the uncertainty of technical change into climate change policy analysis. We present the results of an expert elicitation on the prospects for technical change in carbon capture and storage. We find a significant amount of disagreement between experts, even over the most mature technology; and this disagreement is most pronounced in regards to cost estimates. We then use the results of the expert elicitations as inputs to the MiniCAM integrated assessment model, to derive probabilistic information about the …

Slides: Indian Water Rights, Robert T. Anderson

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Robert T. Anderson, Native American Law Center, University of Washington Law School

19 slides

Slides: Groundwater Declines, Climate Change And Approaches To Adaptation, Katharine Jacobs

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Katharine Jacobs, Director of the Arizona Water Institute, University of Arizona

37 slides

Uncertainty, Technical Change, And Policy Models, Erin Baker, Leon Clarke, Jeffrey Keisler, Ekundayo Shittu

College of Management Working Papers and Reports

Both climate change and technical change are uncertain. In this paper we show the importance of including both uncertainties when modeling for policy analysis. We then develop an approach for incorporating uncertainty of technical change into climate change policy analysis. We define and demonstrate a protocol for bottom-up expert assessments about prospects for technologies. We then describe a method for using such assessments to derive a probability distribution over future abatement curves, and to estimate random return functions for technological investment in different areas. Finally, we show how these analytic results could be used in a variety of energy-economic models …

Slides: Lessons From The Pinedale Anticline Adaptive Management Process, Peter Aengst

Best Management Practices and Adaptive Management in Oil and Gas Development (May 12-13)

Presenter: Peter Aengst, Regional Associate, The Wilderness Society, Northern Rockies Office

24 slides

Slides: Adaptive Management: Pros, Cons, And Lessons Learned, Pete Morton

Best Management Practices and Adaptive Management in Oil and Gas Development (May 12-13)

Presenter: Pete Morton, Ph.D., The Wilderness Society

21 slides

Conference Summary: Water, Climate And Uncertainty: Implications For Western Water Law, Policy, And Management, Steve Bailey

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

7 pages.

"Steve Bailey, National Center for Atmospheric Research"

Either/Or? Will Climate Change Force A Choice Between Salmon And Electricity In The Northwest?, John M. Volkman

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

12 pages and 16 slides

Includes bibliographical references

"John M. Volkman, Partner, Stoel Rives LLP, Portland, Oregon"