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Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson

Economics Faculty Publication Series

Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …

The Mysteries Of Trend, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Trends are ubiquitous in economic discourse, play a role in much economic theory, and have been intensively studied in econometrics over the last three decades. Yet the empirical economist, forecaster, and policy maker have little guidance from theory about the source and nature of trend behavior, even less guidance about practical formulations, and are heavily reliant on a limited class of stochastic trend, deterministic drift, and structural break models to use in applications. A vast econometric literature has emerged but the nature of trend remains elusive. In spite of being the dominant characteristic in much economic data, having a role …

The Public Understanding Of Climate Change : A Case Study Of Taiwanese Youth, Shih-Yun Kuo

Dissertations

Global climate change is likely to be the most challenging environmental dilemma of the 21st century because its impacts on ecosystems and human society are transnational in scale and long term in scope. Due to its high scientific complexity and uncertainty and high political and economic sensitivity, mitigating the problem will require interdisciplinary cooperation and collective and sustained efforts on the part of all nations. Sufficient domestic support from both government and the lay public will not only be significant to the success of an international climate regime, but also crucial to the effectiveness of potential domestic climate policies.

Such …

A Procedure For The Quantitative Assessment Of Water Resources Management Under Climate Change And The Design Of Adaptation Measures, D. Anghileri, F. Pianosi, R. Soncini-Sessa, E. Weber

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The pressure on water resources has tremendously increased in the last decades and waterstress is expected to further augment in many part of the world due to multiple social, economicand climatic factors. Climate change (CC) will play a key role in determining water availabilityespecially in those countries where other drivers like population growth or economic conditionsare rather stable. A huge research effort is undergoing to better understand how CC may affect thehydrological cycle. In this paper, we propose and apply a procedure on the basin of lake Como,Italy, to assess the impact of CC on water-related activities. Traditionally, this is …

A Geosimulation Tool To Assess Intervention Scenarios In Relation To The Spread Of Infectious Disease And Environmental Factors, Mondher Bouden, Bernard Moulin, Pierre Gosselin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Several approaches have been proposed to model and simulate the spread ofinfectious diseases such as the West Nile virus (WNV). However, these approaches such asmathematical modeling and cellular automata have some weaknesses when trying to modeland simulate the influence of geographic and climatic features on the disease spread and thespatio-temporal interactions of various kinds of actors (e.g. mosquitoes, birds, mammalsand humans in the WNV case). In this context, we propose to apply a geosimulationapproach to remedy some shortcomings of current methods. Using such an approach wedeveloped WNV-MAGS, a tool allowing public health decision policy makers to assessseveral intervention scenarios in …

Integrated Modelling For Health And Environmental Impact Assessment Of Air Pollution And Climate Change, Stefan Reis, T. Oxley, Ed Rowe

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Modelling the impacts of air pollution and climate change on human health and ecosystems in integrated assessment models (IAMs) has emerged as a key tool to inform policy decision making, where simplistic solutions are unlikely to deliver efficient and sustainable pathways for future development. Model integration is facing a complex set of challenges in different dimensions, as integrated models have to be: - Spatially explicit and of sufficiently high spatial resolution for their respective domain, with nesting approaches providing the integration across different spatial scales. - Temporally dynamic to model system responses and recovery e.g. pollutant accumulation, time-lag (e.g. of …

Risk Assessment And Decision Support Tools For The Integrated Evaluation Of Climate Change Impacts On Coastal Zones, S. Torresan, A. Zabeo, J. Rizzi, A. Critto, L. Pizzol, S. Giove, Antonio Marcomini

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Nowadays there is new and stronger evidence that sea level rise, increased storminess and coastal erosion as a consequence of global warming are likely to have profound impacts on coastal communities and ecosystems. Regional Risk Assessment (RRA) is an interdisciplinary approach to evaluate and rank potential impacts, targets and areas at risk from climate change hazards. Within the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC) a RRA methodology was developed to assess impacts of climate change at the regional scale and to assist coastal communities in planning adaptation measures. The proposed methodology integrates the output of downscaled climate, circulation, morphodynamic and …

An Agent Based Model Of Climate Change And Conflict Among Pastoralists In East Africa, Atesmachew B. Hailegiorgis, William G. Kennedy, Mark Rouleau, Jeffrey K. Bassett, Mark Coletti, Gabriel C. Balan, Tim Gulden

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We present an agent-based model of human-environment interaction and conflict in East Africa using the MASON agent-based simulation environment. Our model focuses on the complex interaction of pastoral groups with their environment and other emerging external actors. Our model supports the observation that increased seasonal rainfall variability and droughts create tremendous stress on pastoralists groups and challenges their long-term resilience and adaptive response mechanisms.

Risk Assessment And Decision Support Tools For The Integrated Evaluation Of Climate Change Impacts On Coastal Zones, S. Torresan, A. Zabeo, J. Rizzi, A. Critto, L. Pizzol, S. Giove, Antonio Marcomini

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Nowadays there is new and stronger evidence that sea level rise, increased storminess and coastal erosion as a consequence of global warming are likely to have profound impacts on coastal communities and ecosystems. Regional Risk Assessment (RRA) is an interdisciplinary approach to evaluate and rank potential impacts, targets and areas at risk from climate change hazards. Within the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC) a RRA methodology was developed to assess impacts of climate change at the regional scale and to assist coastal communities in planning adaptation measures. The proposed methodology integrates the output of downscaled climate, circulation, morphodynamic and …

A Procedure For The Quantitative Assessment Of Water Resources Management Under Climate Change And The Design Of Adaptation Measures, D. Anghileri, F. Pianosi, R. Soncini-Sessa, E. Weber

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The pressure on water resources has tremendously increased in the last decades and waterstress is expected to further augment in many part of the world due to multiple social, economicand climatic factors. Climate change (CC) will play a key role in determining water availabilityespecially in those countries where other drivers like population growth or economic conditionsare rather stable. A huge research effort is undergoing to better understand how CC may affect thehydrological cycle. In this paper, we propose and apply a procedure on the basin of lake Como,Italy, to assess the impact of CC on water-related activities. Traditionally, this is …

An Agent Based Model Of Climate Change And Conflict Among Pastoralists In East Africa, Atesmachew B. Hailegiorgis, William G. Kennedy, Mark Rouleau, Jeffrey K. Bassett, Mark Coletti, Gabriel C. Balan, Tim Gulden

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We present an agent-based model of human-environment interaction and conflict in East Africa using the MASON agent-based simulation environment. Our model focuses on the complex interaction of pastoral groups with their environment and other emerging external actors. Our model supports the observation that increased seasonal rainfall variability and droughts create tremendous stress on pastoralists groups and challenges their long-term resilience and adaptive response mechanisms.

A Geosimulation Tool To Assess Intervention Scenarios In Relation To The Spread Of Infectious Disease And Environmental Factors, Mondher Bouden, Bernard Moulin, Pierre Gosselin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Several approaches have been proposed to model and simulate the spread ofinfectious diseases such as the West Nile virus (WNV). However, these approaches such asmathematical modeling and cellular automata have some weaknesses when trying to modeland simulate the influence of geographic and climatic features on the disease spread and thespatio-temporal interactions of various kinds of actors (e.g. mosquitoes, birds, mammalsand humans in the WNV case). In this context, we propose to apply a geosimulationapproach to remedy some shortcomings of current methods. Using such an approach wedeveloped WNV-MAGS, a tool allowing public health decision policy makers to assessseveral intervention scenarios in …

Integrated Modelling For Health And Environmental Impact Assessment Of Air Pollution And Climate Change, Stefan Reis, T. Oxley, Ed Rowe

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Modelling the impacts of air pollution and climate change on human health and ecosystems in integrated assessment models (IAMs) has emerged as a key tool to inform policy decision making, where simplistic solutions are unlikely to deliver efficient and sustainable pathways for future development. Model integration is facing a complex set of challenges in different dimensions, as integrated models have to be: - Spatially explicit and of sufficiently high spatial resolution for their respective domain, with nesting approaches providing the integration across different spatial scales. - Temporally dynamic to model system responses and recovery e.g. pollutant accumulation, time-lag (e.g. of …

Marine Bioinvasions And Climate Change, James T. Carlton, Sandra C. Lindstrom, Celia M. Smith, Jennifer E. Smith

National Invasive Species Council

BACKGROUND

Invasive species are second only to habitat destruction as the greatest cause of species endangerment and global biodiversity loss. Invasive species can cause severe and permanent damage to the ecosystems they invade. Consequences of invasion include competition with or predation upon native species, hybridization, carrying or supporting harmful pathogens and parasites that may affect wildlife and human health, disturbing ecosystem function through alteration of food webs and nutrient recycling rates, acting as ecosystem engineers and altering habitat structure, and degradation of the aesthetic quality of our natural resources. In many cases we may not fully know the native animals …

Some Reflections On Fish And Wildlife Resources (Report Chapter Nine), Todd True

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)

4 pages.

Includes Proposed Revisions to the National Objectives, Principles and Standards for Water and Related Resources Implementation Studies

Slides: America's Redrock Wilderness, Scott Groene

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: Scott Groene, Executive Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (Moab, UT)

23 slides

Slides: Livestock Grazing On The Public Lands, Joe Feller

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: Joe Feller, Professor of Law, Arizona State University Law School; Visiting Professor, University of Colorado Law School

33 slides

Agenda: 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, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

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)

Sponsors: US Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management; Western Resource Advocates; The Wilderness Society; National Wildlife Federation; Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation Grants Program, Red Lodge Clearinghouse; United States Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Conference moderators, panelists and speakers included University of Colorado Law School professors William Boyd, David H. Getches, Sarah Krakoff, Mark Squillace and Charles F. Wilkinson.

In 1964 Congress established the Public Land Law Review Commission to review the public land laws of the United States and to determine whether revisions were necessary. The Commission was comprised of six members appointed by the President, …

Slides: Celebrating Flpma: Land Use Planning At The Blm, Marcilynn Burke

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: Marcilynn Burke, BLM Deputy Director - Programs and Policy, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, (Washington, D.C.)

30 slides

Recent Advances In The Climate Change Biology Literature: Describing The Whole Elephant, A. Townsend Peterson, Shaily Menon, Xingong Li

Peer Reviewed Publications

Climate change biology is seeing a wave of new contributions, which are reviewed herein. Contributions treat shifts in phenology and distribution, and both document past and forecast future effects. However, many of the current wave of contributions are observational and correlational, and few are experimental in nature, and too often a conceptual framework in which to contextualize the results is lacking. An additional gap is the lack of effective cross-linking among areas of research, for example, connection of sea-level rise and climate change implications for distributions of species, or evolutionary adaptation studies with distributional shift studies. Although numerous important contributions …

Variations In Vulnerability To Climate Change In Southeast Asia, Kelsey Margaret Allard

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Egg-Lay Dates Of Bald Eagles As A Potential Indicator Of Global Climate Change, Jennifer Garrison

All Theses

The effects of climate change on many wildlife species is a new area of research. Long&ndashterm data sets on raptor populations may hold the key to documenting these impacts from local to ecosystem scales. The Michigan bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) population has been monitored continuously since 1961, and virtually all reproductive outcomes are known since 1963. The bald eagle population at Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota has been monitored continuously since 1973. Though these data sets are extensive, little is known about the effects of climate change on egg laying dates in sea eagles (Haliaeetus spp). Understanding these effects could ultimately …

Past And Projected Future Changes In Snowpack And Soil Frost At The Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, Usa, John L. Cambell, Scott V. Ollinger, Gerald N. Flerchinger, Haley Wicklein, Katharine Hayhoe, Amey S. Bailey

Faculty Publications

Long‐term data from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire show that air temperature has increased by about 1 °C over the last half century. The warmer climate has caused significant declines in snow depth, snow water equivalent and snow cover duration. Paradoxically, it has been suggested that warmer air temperatures may result in colder soils and more soil frost, as warming leads to a reduction in snow cover insulating soils during winter. Hubbard Brook has one of the longest records of direct field measurements of soil frost in the United States. Historical records show no long‐term trends in …

Trends In Climate Change Education In Nevada's System Of Higher Education, Amy Northrup

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

This poster presents research into how climate change is taught in Nevada's colleges and universities. A completed inventory of the types of courses in different disciplines and at different institutions that relay information about climate change to students is discussed.

29 Years Of Vegetation Community Change Across Environmental Gradients In A Mojave Desert Mountain Range, Christopher L. Roberts, James S. Holland, Scott R. Abella

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

There is a great deal of uncertainty as to how biological communities respond to changes in land use and climate change, a situation particularly relevant in protected areas such as national parks that were designated to conserve specific biological features. Utilizing extant vegetation data sets with repeatable methodology can provide opportunities for insight into previous vegetation change and provide base line data for long-term monitoring projects useful for modeling vegetation community trajectories. We have relocated and resurveyed 106 sites from a vegetation community study initiated in 1979 in the Newberry Mountains, southern Nevada, within Lake Mead National Recreation Area managed …

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 3, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

This report is the third in a series of efforts by students at the Muskie School of Public Service, Community Planning and Development Master’s program, in a core class called “Sustainable Communities.” In this course students seek to understand principles of sustainability and how efforts to implement Sustainability programs can become more successful. The report assembles term papers students completed on particular efforts by municipalities, universities, and other groups to achieve sustainability goals. Students worked on each project in a service learning format with real world clients. They were asked to fashion their papers around lessons learned by other organizations …

Gasoline: The Achilles' Heel Of U. S. Energy Security, Robert W. Weaver

United States Department of Energy: Publications

The United States must balance securing our energy future with protecting our environment from climate change. A holistic approach is required to solve this complex problem. We must reduce demand for petroleum, improve energy efficiency, and develop feasible alternative energy solutions to include emission capture technologies.

The United States remains the largest consumer of energy products in the world and is the second leading producer of green house gas (GHG) emissions. Our dependence on imported petroleum is undermining our control of our national security interests. Petroleum comprises 63% of the United States’ energy consumption, with the transportation sector accounting for …

A Climate Action Plan For Bucknell University, Wendy Chou, Dina El-Mogazi, Dennis Hawley

Technical Reports

The accelerating pace of human-influenced climate change and our growing awareness of its negative public-health, environmental, and economic consequences compel decisive action. In recent years, many institutions of higher education have taken leadership roles to promote sustainability and climate neutrality at the campus level. In January 2008, Bucknell University became a signatory to the American Colleges and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Under this agreement, Bucknell is required to prepare a comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gas emissions by May 2009, to update the inventory every other year thereafter, and to implement tangible emissions-reducing actions in the short-term (two years). The …

City Of San Luis Obispo: Community And Municipal Operations 2005 Baseline Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, Geoffrey M. Chiapella

Master's Theses

The passage of AB 32 in 2006 initiated the need for city planners in California to consider the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions at the community level in order to develop policies and programs to reduce emissions in the future. Although local jurisdictions are not required to quantify and report emissions at this time, the AB 32 Climate Change Scoping Plan recommended a reduction goal for local governments of 15 percent below today’s levels by 2020 to ensure consistent reduction goals at the state and local levels.

ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability initiated the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign in …

Climate Change And Real Estate: How Environmental Risks And Policies Impact Markets, Adele C. Morris

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Climate change could worsen environmental conditions that affect real estate values, such as extreme weather events and coastal erosion. But policies to prevent climate change can also affect real estate values, for example through higher energy prices and land use regulation. This lecture will examine the linkages between the climate change risks, climate policy, and real estate markets. We will also discuss the likely regional economic effects of recent proposed climate legislation.