In my class this spring semester we watched a documentary about glyphosate that was posted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The end of the movie talks about what a huge change it is going to be for agriculture across the country if glyphosate is no longer a part of the system. Today I read that workers are taking the first steps to rid themselves from reliance on the chemical. Rooting that out is going to be a difficult process but hopefully they can make progress!
Update: found another interesting article on the role of glyphosate in modern agriculture. "Desiccation makes it possible to cultivate massive tracts of farmland and feed billions of people profitably. Based on the evidence we have so far, we can’t prove that that there is any health cost to the practice. But neither can we say there isn’t a cost—and there are many reasons to think there might be one. "
Friday, July 5, 2019
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Costs of climate change so far: $4 TRILLION
Ouch. "We estimate that since 2000, warming has already cost both the US and
the EU at least $4 trillion in lost output, and tropical countries are
greater than 5% poorer than they would have been without this warming." Link
Monday, June 10, 2019
Fishing licenses
Maine, often hailed as an example of a successful fishery via licensing, is changing their rules a bit. Turns out things haven't gone so well for new folks hoping to enter the industry. Well, you remember your Resource Econ class? You maximize total profit NOT by allowing free entry and exit, but by limiting catch. Looks like that's what's up in Maine.
Similarly, there's an article in Nature Conservancy's magazine on work they are doing with organizing fishers in Peru. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of progress yet, but the industry is starting to set some boundaries. Remember, the monopoly outcome isn't a terrible result in situations where there are externalities, such as common resources.
Meanwhile, back at home: it turns out it's pretty profitable to mix foreign crab into your domestic product and then pretend that it's good ol' American Blue crab. Virginia's Casey Seafood was found guilty of doing this to the tune of several million dollars. Assuming that this is rare behavior, and that we do want to promote our local industry, here is a listing of businesses that serve only real product.
Similarly, there's an article in Nature Conservancy's magazine on work they are doing with organizing fishers in Peru. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of progress yet, but the industry is starting to set some boundaries. Remember, the monopoly outcome isn't a terrible result in situations where there are externalities, such as common resources.
Meanwhile, back at home: it turns out it's pretty profitable to mix foreign crab into your domestic product and then pretend that it's good ol' American Blue crab. Virginia's Casey Seafood was found guilty of doing this to the tune of several million dollars. Assuming that this is rare behavior, and that we do want to promote our local industry, here is a listing of businesses that serve only real product.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Climate Change & Health
Heat waves. More disease vectors and more disease. Even increasing loss of crops and food security. The effects of climate change are increasingly apparent....
One of the more hidden risks is the way that climate change may affect plant growth. That sounds pretty obscure, but the bottom line is that crops won't have as many nutrients. For a lot of people that's no big deal, but if you're poor and depend on those crops to survive, that could be a big deal indeed.
One of the more hidden risks is the way that climate change may affect plant growth. That sounds pretty obscure, but the bottom line is that crops won't have as many nutrients. For a lot of people that's no big deal, but if you're poor and depend on those crops to survive, that could be a big deal indeed.
Friday, June 7, 2019
Nuclear power & climate change
In Spring of 2019 for my Resource Economics class I stumbled upon this very convincing TED talk about nuclear energy. This guy, Michael Sullenberger, argues that of course solar and wind are great choices but they just don't provide sufficient energy to provide the world with the power it needs: as we'd need to basically cover the earth with solar panels and/ or wind turbines. Solar panels have limited lifetimes and contain some nasty substances as well that we'll need to be very careful when they eventually make their way to the trash heap.
Also futurist Steven Pinker and climate change experts Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist have recently published an article called, "Nuclear Power Can Save the World," in which they argue a few things. First, they say that the waste is manageable- more manageable than coal ash, which like nuclear waste is toxic, but much more voluminous. Further coal and to a lesser extent natural gas create a great deal of air pollution, which kills many, many people every year. Second, they remind us that while accidents involving scary and invisible radiation have happened, the only one that has led to a loss of human life is the horribly mismanaged facility at Chernobyl. Yes, other harm has resulted as land was rendered unusable by Fukushima and other incidents, but how much land has been devastated by mining, or how much would be needed for solar and wind? Surely a lot more.
A similar argument for nuclear is echoed by the Washington Post's Charles Lane: Germany under Merkel has tried and failed to limit carbon emissions without incorporating nuclear energy into the mix, with poor results. Bloomberg contributor Chris Bryant sums that up: "Germany’s nuclear shutdowns might please the electorate but they’re boneheaded from a climate perspective." Case closed?
Just when I was starting to be pretty swayed, I found a few other articles coming to the opposite conclusion. "Wild weather, fires, rising sea levels, earthquakes and warming water temperatures all increase the risk of nuclear accidents, while the lack of safe, long-term storage for radioactive waste remains a persistent danger" argue Heidi Hutner and Erica Cirino. "Nuclear power... makes no economic or energy sense." Who's boneheaded now?
The other big piece on the subject is by Gregory Jaczko, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He has two key contentions: first, the costs of implementing nuclear today are just off the charts: cost overrun followed by cost overrun has led to spending tens of billions of dollars in a couple of sites without any power to show for it. Second, renewables are doing the job better: when Japan took its nuclear plants down after the Fukushima incident, they coped by ramping up conservation and reliance on renewables. Today they have plenty of power and greenhouse gas emissions are down. Jaczko has become an advocate for offshore wind energy.
I don't want to go too far down that other track, but suffice to say that offshore wind, while doing well in some parts of northern Europe, is pretty expensive. Here is a 2019 report published by the US EIA, saying that offshore wind is pretty darn expensive. Obviously that's not the final word, but I am still left balancing Sullenberger vs. Jaczko. What do you think?
PS Here are a few letters to the editor referencing the Jaczko letter. Skip the first but there are a few tidbits after that....
Also futurist Steven Pinker and climate change experts Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist have recently published an article called, "Nuclear Power Can Save the World," in which they argue a few things. First, they say that the waste is manageable- more manageable than coal ash, which like nuclear waste is toxic, but much more voluminous. Further coal and to a lesser extent natural gas create a great deal of air pollution, which kills many, many people every year. Second, they remind us that while accidents involving scary and invisible radiation have happened, the only one that has led to a loss of human life is the horribly mismanaged facility at Chernobyl. Yes, other harm has resulted as land was rendered unusable by Fukushima and other incidents, but how much land has been devastated by mining, or how much would be needed for solar and wind? Surely a lot more.
A similar argument for nuclear is echoed by the Washington Post's Charles Lane: Germany under Merkel has tried and failed to limit carbon emissions without incorporating nuclear energy into the mix, with poor results. Bloomberg contributor Chris Bryant sums that up: "Germany’s nuclear shutdowns might please the electorate but they’re boneheaded from a climate perspective." Case closed?
Just when I was starting to be pretty swayed, I found a few other articles coming to the opposite conclusion. "Wild weather, fires, rising sea levels, earthquakes and warming water temperatures all increase the risk of nuclear accidents, while the lack of safe, long-term storage for radioactive waste remains a persistent danger" argue Heidi Hutner and Erica Cirino. "Nuclear power... makes no economic or energy sense." Who's boneheaded now?
The other big piece on the subject is by Gregory Jaczko, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He has two key contentions: first, the costs of implementing nuclear today are just off the charts: cost overrun followed by cost overrun has led to spending tens of billions of dollars in a couple of sites without any power to show for it. Second, renewables are doing the job better: when Japan took its nuclear plants down after the Fukushima incident, they coped by ramping up conservation and reliance on renewables. Today they have plenty of power and greenhouse gas emissions are down. Jaczko has become an advocate for offshore wind energy.
I don't want to go too far down that other track, but suffice to say that offshore wind, while doing well in some parts of northern Europe, is pretty expensive. Here is a 2019 report published by the US EIA, saying that offshore wind is pretty darn expensive. Obviously that's not the final word, but I am still left balancing Sullenberger vs. Jaczko. What do you think?
PS Here are a few letters to the editor referencing the Jaczko letter. Skip the first but there are a few tidbits after that....
Food waste
A student in my class this spring wrote a paper on food waste, and I wanted to highlight a few key pieces of literature. First is this piece about food recycling in Korea, which has a stunning 95% recycling rate for food. For a country that is famous for filling restaurant tables with little "Banchan" dishes that aren't ordered, this is a pretty impressive development!
A leading voice among economists who are interested in food waste is Prof. Marc Bellemare; here is a 2018 blog post. He basically contends that food waste isn't really worth getting too excited about.
A leading voice among economists who are interested in food waste is Prof. Marc Bellemare; here is a 2018 blog post. He basically contends that food waste isn't really worth getting too excited about.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Air pollution
Did you know that pollution is associated with mental health issues? Cognitive functioning? Murder rates? I could definitely see the first, and maybe the second, but third.... To be clear these results are not from studies that employ full-on causal analysis, but this is interesting nonetheless.
A more straightforward but still chilling conclusion from a different study: one of the largest causes of infant mortality in Europe is air pollution. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/6/1084
"Worldwide, outdoor air pollution reduces the average life expectancy at birth by one year. The effect is much more pronounced in some countries: It cuts the average Egyptian’s life span by 1.9 years and the average Indian’s by 1.5 years. In Russia, it’s around nine months." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/climate/air-pollution-deaths.html
"[W]e find significant positive effects of air pollution ... on body mass index (BMI)" http://ftp.iza.org/dp12296.pdf
“Air pollution can harm acutely, as well as chronically, potentially affecting every organ in the body,” conclude the scientists from the Forum of International Respiratory Societies in the two review papers, published in the journal Chest. “Ultrafine particles pass through the [lungs], are readily picked up by cells, and carried via the bloodstream to expose virtually all cells in the body.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/17/air-pollution-may-be-damaging-every-organ-and-cell-in-the-body-finds-global-review
This NYT summary talks about the effects of air pollution on mental health while this research article shows that "PM2.5 reduces hedonic happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms" http://ftp.iza.org/dp12313.pdf
Historical studies of for example the four day London smog of 1952 increased mortality rates by 2%, and caused long-term damage to human development, ability to work, and increased cancer risk for decades.
Update July 2019: "New study links air pollution with over 30,000 deaths and reduced life expectancy in the United States" PLoS article
Also, dust from the Sahara desert increases infant mortality NBER paper
A more straightforward but still chilling conclusion from a different study: one of the largest causes of infant mortality in Europe is air pollution. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/6/1084
"Worldwide, outdoor air pollution reduces the average life expectancy at birth by one year. The effect is much more pronounced in some countries: It cuts the average Egyptian’s life span by 1.9 years and the average Indian’s by 1.5 years. In Russia, it’s around nine months." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/climate/air-pollution-deaths.html
"[W]e find significant positive effects of air pollution ... on body mass index (BMI)" http://ftp.iza.org/dp12296.pdf
“Air pollution can harm acutely, as well as chronically, potentially affecting every organ in the body,” conclude the scientists from the Forum of International Respiratory Societies in the two review papers, published in the journal Chest. “Ultrafine particles pass through the [lungs], are readily picked up by cells, and carried via the bloodstream to expose virtually all cells in the body.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/may/17/air-pollution-may-be-damaging-every-organ-and-cell-in-the-body-finds-global-review
This NYT summary talks about the effects of air pollution on mental health while this research article shows that "PM2.5 reduces hedonic happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms" http://ftp.iza.org/dp12313.pdf
Historical studies of for example the four day London smog of 1952 increased mortality rates by 2%, and caused long-term damage to human development, ability to work, and increased cancer risk for decades.
Update July 2019: "New study links air pollution with over 30,000 deaths and reduced life expectancy in the United States" PLoS article
Also, dust from the Sahara desert increases infant mortality NBER paper
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