Environmental Policy Commons^™

Biodiversity Loss & Urban Heat: A Nature- Based Wildlife Policy For The Las Vegas Metro, Zachary Billot

Student Research

As the population of the Las Vegas Metro continues to grow, new developments expand on the periphery. As Las Vegas continues to increase in size and develop further into wildlife habitat, not only are native animals and plants endangered, but residents are at risk of increasingly dangerous urban heat given the increase in impervious cover that makes Las Vegas the 2nd fastest warming metro in the U.S. This policy brief examines current policy and practice in place to highlight the need for positive human-wildlife interaction that will address the growing threat of biodiversity loss and heat vulnerability. This policy brief …

Climate Change And Environmental Crises In Coastal Cities: Charleston Vs New York City, Nolan Rodriguez

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the increasing vulnerability that coastal communities face regarding climate crises and rising sea levels. Specifically, this paper investigates the environmental crises facing Charleston, South Carolina, and New York City. The geographical location of these cities places a more severe threat upon their environment, as opposed to urban collectives removed from the immediate effect of rising sea levels. A cross-examination of politics and economics is discussed in order to determine the causal relationship of each city’s engagement with its surrounding environment. This paper examines how each city is affected by climate change, what measures are in place to …

Yearly Population Data At Census Tract Level Revealed That More People Are Now Living In Highly Fire-Prone Zones In California, Usa, Slade Lazeweski, Shenyue Jia, Jessica E. Viner, Wesley Ho, Brian Hoover, Seung Hee Kim, Menas C. Kafatos

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

In California (CA), the wildland-urban interface (WUI) faces escalating challenges due to surging population and real estate development. This study evaluates communities along CA's WUI that have witnessed substantial population growth from 2010 to 2021, utilizing demographic data and the 2020 WUI boundaries by the University of Wisconsin-Madison SILVIS Lab. Employing the Mann-Kendall test, we analyze yearly population trends for each census tract along the CA WUI and assess their significance. House ownership, affordability, and wildfire risk are examined as potential drivers of this demographic shift. Our findings indicate that 12.7% of CA's total population now resides in census tracts …

Climate Change Skepticism: Who And Why?, Mia Huyen Truong

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Despite persistent scientific consensus urging immediate action, political polarization, and skepticism have hindered effective climate change mitigation, especially in the United States. This paper explores the factors influencing climate change attitudes among different groups, focusing on right-wing affiliates and Christian believers. Drawing on the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis (McCright and Dunlap, 2001-2010) and Information Processing Theory (Wood & Vedlitz, 2007), we investigate the effects of individual characteristics, including partisan ideology, party identification, educational attainment, and Christian faith. Using Wave 7 (2021) of the Chapman Survey of American Fears Survey, a nationwide sample of different fears among U.S. adults, this study aims to …

Exploring Gaps In City Climate Planning In The Mountain West, Joshua Padilla, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet explores data from the 2022 Brookings Institution report by Joseph W. Kane, Adie Tomer, Caroline George, and Jamal Russell Black called “Not according to plan: Exploring gaps in city climate planning and the need for regional action." The original report analyzes decarbonization plans for 50 of the largest U.S. cities and comparatively ranks each plan using a point system of 5 categories. This fact sheet focuses on Mountain West cities (Denver, CO; Phoenix, AZ; Las Vegas, NV; Salt Lake, UT; and Albuquerque, NM) included in the original study.

Community Resilience In Vermont After The 2023 Flooding Event, Alex Poniz

Family Medicine Clerkship Student Projects

Between July 10th-11th 2023 Vermont experienced catastrophic flooding after receiving prolonged heavy rainfall of up to 9” over 48 hrs. Damage from the 2023 event rivals the historic destruction of Hurricane Irene in 2011 and is exceeded only by the Great Vermont Flood of 1927, an event predating modern flood controls. We collected oral histories from Vermonters to better understand their lived experience of the flood and its impacts, and identifed common themes related to community and individual resilience.

Quantifying The Carbon Stored And Sequestered By The Trees On Pomona College’S Campus, Paola A. Giron-Carson

Scripps Senior Theses

We are experiencing a climate crisis that must be confronted with strategic mitigation. Pomona College contributes to the climate crisis through its emissions for which there is a baseline record. However there is no baseline record of the climate mitigation currently performed by the trees on Pomona’s campus through carbon storage. This study seeks to determine a current baseline quantity of carbon stored and sequestrated by Pomona’s trees as well as possible courses of climate mitigation for Pomona College to take. Initial information gathering was conducted through interviews with several stakeholders. This study was conducted using data collected prior to …

Air Quality In The Mountain West, 2018-2020, Zachary Billot, Zachary Walusek, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet examines the state of air quality, including ozone levels and particle pollution, throughout the Mountain West from 2018 to 2020. Data from the American Lung Association “State of the Air” report is used to determine the quality of air in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

Dr. Kim Scipes: Building A Network Of Compassion In A World Waiting To Be United, Kayla Vasilko

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

In his career, Dr. Kim Scipes has been globally active in the labor movement for almost 40 years and has published over 240 articles and book reviews. Additionally, Dr. Scipes has authored four books, three of which were completed while Dr. Scipes taught at PNW (the first two while he was teaching four courses a semester); his publication list is accessible via: https://www.pnw.edu/faculty/kim-scipes-ph-d/publications/, a listing that strongly illustrates his impressive range of work and dedication to advancing knowledge not just for the university, but for the world. Dr. Scipes’ Sociology 404 course (Environment and Social Justice) gives students a …

Wildfire Risk In Mountain West States, 2017-2021, Olivia K. Cheche, Corryn Richardson, Zachary Billot, Miguel Soriano Ralston, Vanessa Booth, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet examines data on wildfire destruction in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The original report from the Insurance Information Institute presents findings on percent of properties at risk of wildfire destruction, the number of wildfires by state, and numbers of acres burned per state.

Destruction Is A Must-See: Coastal Heritage Site Erosion And Public Perception Of Climate Change, Haley Borowy

Senior Theses

Archaeological sites in South Carolina are vanishing. As sea level rise, and therefore coastal erosion, worsen, more sites will disappear. The questions of how erosion at these sites is measured and how the public perceives the effects of climate change have been studied separately, but not together. Here, the intersection of these is discussed, alongside how sites are portrayed affects how the public perceives them, and therefore their importance. Studies on measuring coastal erosion, local news reports, government documents, and public perception of coastal management and sea level rise illuminate how people eventually decide what is worth saving.

Climate Change And Human Responses, Caroline Znachko, Armando Anzellini, Katherine Parker, Christa Hicks

Anthropology Publications and Other Works

The Department of Anthropology’s Visiting Lecture Research Series is an ongoing edited volume compiling research products created by (under)graduate students for the Department of Anthropology’s Visiting Lecture Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Each volume in the series, compiled by its own (under)graduate student editors and approved by the Department Head, includes original research products by participating (under)graduate students.

The Department of Anthropology’s Visiting Lecture Program, also known as Current Trends in Anthropology (ANTH357/550), is a symposium held annually each fall semester with a different theme for the purpose of exposing students to anthropologists from around the world and …

Climate Trailblazer Or Corporate Giveaway: An Economic And Political Evaluation Of Cap-And-Trade In California, Benjamin Reicher

Pomona Senior Theses

In this thesis, I conduct an economic and political analysis of California’s cap-and-trade program, the leading national (and international) example of a market-based strategy to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. I evaluate the program on several economic and political measures of success, especially as contrasted with the performance of various regulatory policies that California also relies on to meet its emissions reduction targets. These regulations exemplify a command and control approach to emissions mitigation as opposed to a market-based approach, and indeed tend to be favored by grassroots activists who may be skeptical about market-friendly policies; my thesis seeks to …

Addressing The Role Of Climate Change In Agriculture And Mexico-Us Immigration, Xiaoxin Liang

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Among the greatest threats of climate change is the significant impact on mass displacement, particularly as it relates to Mexico-US immigration. Low crop yields from worsening climate conditions have been linked to increased migration of Mexican farmers. With a projected 4.2 million additional migrants in the foreseeable future, it poses a contemporary environmental, social, and political dilemma. This policy brief analyzes several provision proposals to be adopted into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), as evaluated under economic cost, equity, environmental impact, and feasibility criteria. My research concludes that the most effective and direct provision proposal is the implementation of adaptive …

Climate-Induced Stressors To Peace: A Review Of Recent Literature, Ayyoob Sharifi, Dahlia Simangan, Chui Ying Lee, Rose Reyes, Tarek Katramiz, Jairus Carmela C. Josol, Leticia Dos Muchangos, Hassan Virji, Shinji Kaneko, Thea Kersti Tandog, Leorence Tandog, Moinul Islam

Environmental Science Faculty Publications

Climate change is increasingly recognized as a threat to global peace and security. This paper intends to provide a better understanding of the nature of interactions between climate change and events that undermine peace through a systematic review of recent literature. It highlights major methodological approaches adopted in the literature, elaborates on the geographic focus of the research at the nexus of climate change and peace, and provides further information on how various climatic stressors, such as extreme temperature, floods, sea-level rise, storms, and water stress may be linked to different events that undermine peace (e.g. civil conflict, crime, intercommunal …

Evaluation Of Existing Climate-Change Adaptation Plans For Municipalities In Mexico: Proposition Of A “Sustainable Mac-Water Framework” That Considers Vulnerability To Impacts On Water Resources, Tsanta Rakotoarisoa

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This paper presents a sustainable adaptive capacity framework for water management for municipalities, named Sustainable MAC-Water framework, after assessing the strengths and weaknesses of adaptive capacity in Mexico and its municipalities. It provides municipalities with an instrument to help them create sustainable adaptive capacity plans (Sustainable MAC plans) to prevent adverse impacts on water resources and related sectors. It is based on a study of policy instruments crafted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Government of Mexico, and literature on adaptive capacity, assessment, and planning. The Sustainable MAC-Water framework recommends the establishment of a Reactive Barriers …

Beyond The Politics Of Climate Change: How Education And Income Level Affect Environmental Values, Joanna Falla

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Human-caused climate change has been acknowledged for decades, but public opinion on its validity and severity has been consistently questioned in the United States. Despite the overwhelming evidence pointing towards fossil fuel emissions and unsustainable practices as the leading causes of global climate change, its politicization during the beginning of the century has seriously slowed down America’s path towards a green future. Because this has become a partisan issue for many voters, considerable research has been done on the affiliation between party identification and public opinion on climate change. Although party identification has been studied as a major factor, other …

Non-Conventional Vehicles As A Way Towards Carbon Neutrality In Iceland, Julia Sokolowska

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Paris Agreement’s chief objective is to protect the Earth and its inhabitants from a point of no return, when the effects of climate change will be so intense that they will shift the equilibrium of ecosystems. The distinctiveness of this international environmental treaty is that it does not impose climate change mitigation measures, but rather allows nation states to create their own set of measures, the NDCs, to reach the global warming of ‘well below 2oC’ by the end of the century. Thus, Iceland has submitted its own NDC, the Climate Action Plan 2018-2030, which has an ambitious goal of …

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emission Bottlenecks: Prioritization Of Targets For Climate Liability, Alexis Pascaris, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications

Due to market failures that allow uncompensated negative externalities from burning fossil fuels, there has been a growing call for climate change-related litigation targeting polluting companies. To determine the most intensive carbon dioxide (CO₂)-emitting facilities in order prioritize liability for climate lawsuits, and risk mitigation strategies for identified companies as well as their insurers and investors, two methods are compared: (1) the conventional point-source method and (2) the proposed bottleneck method, which considers all emissions that a facility enables rather than only what it emits. Results indicate that the top ten CO₂ emission bottlenecks in the U.S. …

Statement Of World Aquatic Scientific Societies On The Need To Take Urgent Action Against Human-Caused Climate Change, Based On Scientific Evidence [Dear Colleague Letter], Scott A. Bonar, Brian R. Murphy, Leanne H. Roulson, Jesse T. Trushenski, Douglas J. Austen, Michael Edward Douglas

United States Fish and Wildlife: Staff Publications

Dear Colleague Letter from the American Fisheries Society to fellow scientific societies, July 25, 2020, about the urgent need for responsive collective action to mitigate impending radical climate change. Includes the Statement of World Aquatic Scientific Societies on the Need to Take Urgent Action Against Human-Caused Climate Change, Based on Scientific Evidence, emphasizing the importance of aquatic ecosystems. Includes extensive citations and notes.

"Water is the most important natural resource on Earth as it is vital for life. Aquatic ecosystems, freshwater or marine, provide multiple benefits to human society, such as provisioning of oxygen, food, drinking water, genetic resources; regulation …

Delay And Geographic Discounting Exert Multiple Control Over Climate Change Policy Preference, Celeste Noelle Unnerstall

MSU Graduate Theses

The procedures were informed by a pilot investigation conducted by this research team that is described below. In the primary study, students attending Missouri State University chose between a policy with no restrictions or taxation on their carbon emissions versus a restriction on the amount of mileage driven per month and taxation related to the mileage. The main study also included an added variable of the influence a redistribution taxation policy into different geographic distances would have on policy preference. Results were interpreted in terms of a multilevel hyperbolic discounting model using the “R” program. The results suggest that there …

The Political Viability Of Carbon Pricing: Policy Design And Framing In British Columbia And California, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

The adoption of climate policies with visible, substantial costs for households is uncommon because of expected political backlash, but British Columbia's carbon tax and California's cap-and-trade program imposed such costs and still survived vigorous opposition. To explain these outcomes, this paper tests hypotheses concerning policy design, framing, energy prices, and elections. It conducts universalizing and variation-finding comparisons across three subcases in the two jurisdictions and uses primary sources to carry out process tracing involving mechanisms of public opinion and elite position taking. The paper finds strong support for the timing of independent energy price changes, exogenous causes of election results, …

Towards A Resilient Future: Federal Policies For Adapting The U.S. Coasts To Climate Change, Samuel Horowitz

Pitzer Senior Theses

Climate change is projected to have a devastating impact on the American coast, yet coastal communities and states have largely failed to prepare for projected impacts. This is in large part due to a lack of resources. This thesis analyzes innovative federal policy mechanisms that will address the current gap between actions and forecasted impacts, and will make U.S. coastal communities more resilient in the face of climate change.

It's Capitalism, Stupid!: The Theoretical And Political Limitations Of The Concept Of Neoliberalism, Bryant William Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This polemical essay explores the meaning and function of the concept of neoliberalism, focusing on the serious theoretical and political limitations of the concept. The crux of the argument is that, for those interested in overcoming the exploitative and oppressively destructive elements of global capitalism, opposing "neoliberalism" (even if best understood as a process or a spectrum of "neoliberalization" or simply privatization) is both insufficient and potentially self-undermining. This article also goes into some detail on the issues of health care and climate change in relation to "neoliberalism" (both conceptually and the material processes and policies that this term refers …

Blue Economy And Climate Change: Bangladesh Perspective, Subrata Sarker, Firdaus Ara Hussain, Mohammad Assaduzzaman, Pierre Failler

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Blue Economy is related to economic growth through the sustainable utilization of ocean resources with technological inputs to improve livelihoods. Economically important coastal and marine resources are the main components of the Blue Economy for Bangladesh. These resources are categorized into living, non-living, renewable resources and trade and commerce. As Bangladesh is vulnerable to climate change, related extreme events are making the coastal and marine resources vulnerable which may hamper the smooth Blue Economy development in Bangladesh. Climate change extreme events include warming trend, cyclone, sea level rise, droughts, erosion, tidal surge, saline water intrusion, flood, change in precipitation trend …

Climate Change, Spring/Summer 2007, Issue 16

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Heat Islands, Fall/Winter 2014, Issue 29

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Wrack Lines Volume 19, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2019, Nancy Balcom, Syma Ebbin, David Gregorio, Richard Telford, Judy Benson

Wrack Lines

Issue theme is: "Making Connections: As the Climate Changes, People and Nature Intertwine in New Ways." Articles include: "As More Roads Become Rivers, Communities Search for Solutions;" "Solving an Engineering Conundrum: As Coastal Homes Get Elevated, New Research Looks at Whether Vulnerability to Wind Damage Is Increasing;" "Along the Coast, Residents Consider How to Heed Sandy's Warning of What's to Come;" "All Rivers, All Lives Run to the Sea," about the intersection of waterways and the world of nature writer Edwin Way Teale; and "Crosscurrents: Connecticut Sea Grant's Retrospective Exhibition Makes Waves," about reaching new audiences and building bridges with …

Circumpolar Status Of Arctic Ptarmigan: Population Dynamics And Trends, Eva Fuglei, John-Andre ́ Henden, Chris T. Callahan, Olivier Gilg, Jannik Hansen, Rolf A. Ims, Arkady P. Isaev, Johannes Lang, Carol L. Mcintyre, Richard A. Merizon, Oleg Y. Mineev, Yuri N. Mineev, Dave Mossop, Olafur K. Nielsen, Erlend B. Nilsen, Ashild Ønvik Pedersen, Niels Martin Martin, Benoıt Sittler, Maria Hørnell Willebrand, Kathy Martin

United States National Park Service: Publications

Rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) and willow ptarmigan (L. lagopus) are Arctic birds with a circumpolar distribution but there is limited knowledge about their status and trends across their circumpolar distribution. Here, we compiled information from 90 ptarmigan study sites from 7 Arctic countries, where almost half of the sites are still monitored. Rock ptarmigan showed an overall negative trend on Iceland and Greenland, while Svalbard and Newfoundland had positive trends, and no significant trends in Alaska. For willow ptarmigan, there was a negative trend in mid-Sweden and eastern Russia, while northern Fennoscandia, North America and Newfoundland had no significant trends. …

Fostering University Collaboration And Building Capacity To Respond To Coastal Resilience Challenges In Virginia: Findings From The Rotating Resilience Roundtables Workshop Spring 2019, Wie Yusuf, Michelle Covi, Anamaria Bukvic, Tom Allen, Taiwo Oguntuyo

Presentations, Lectures, Posters, Reports

[from Background and Overview]

Communities in coastal Virginia, particularly in the urban region of Hampton Roads and the rural Eastern Shore peninsula, are experiencing the impacts of climate change as part of everyday life. Among the most apparent impacts are sea level rise and associated flooding, but increasingly residents of the region are observing changing ecosystems, health impacts and complex social challenges are made more difficult. The region is experiencing the fastest rate of relative sea level rise on the U.S. east coast due to interactions between ocean currents, global sea level rise, high-water tables and ground subsidence (Adapt Virginia …