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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Uncertainty, Technical Change, And Policy Models, Erin Baker, Leon Clarke, Jeffrey Keisler, Ekundayo Shittu Dec 2011

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 …


The Corporate Agenda For Environmental Property Rights, Sharon Beder May 2011

The Corporate Agenda For Environmental Property Rights, Sharon Beder

Sharon Beder

Market and property-rights based approaches to environmental problems have been heavily promoted by conservative think tanks. Consequently policies such as emissions trading, water markets, tradeable fishing quotas and conservation banking pervade environmental policy in English speaking nations. They have enabled the corporate neo-liberal agenda of deregulation, privatisation and an unconstrained market to be dressed up as an environmental virtue. This market-faith based approach is proving to be largely ineffective at protecting the environment and also inequitable.


Market Mechanisms, Ecological Sustainability And Social Equity, Sharon Beder May 2011

Market Mechanisms, Ecological Sustainability And Social Equity, Sharon Beder

Sharon Beder

In most cases the use of market mechanisms to protect the environment aim to maximise economic efficiency rather than environmental effectiveness or equity. The use of emissions trading to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is used as a case study to demonstrate this.


Can The Esa Address The Threats Of Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition? Insights From The Case Of The Bay Checkerspot Butterfly, Zdravka Tzankova, Dena Vallano, Erika Zavaleta Dec 2010

Can The Esa Address The Threats Of Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition? Insights From The Case Of The Bay Checkerspot Butterfly, Zdravka Tzankova, Dena Vallano, Erika Zavaleta

Zdravka Tzankova

The Bay Checkerspot Butterfly reached its threatened status largely as a result of habitat loss through development. The species now benefits from the habitat pro- tection powers of the Endangered Species Act, yet the biggest new hazard to the survival of remaining Bay Checkerspot Butterfly populations may come from atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Driven by combustion and agricultural emissions, such deposition is an important cause of change in ecosystem structure and function, including potentially critical changes in the remaining Bay Checkerspot Butterfly habitat. We use the Bay Checkerspot Butterfly case to examine whether the Endan- gered Species Act, as it currently …