Surface water is among Earth's most important resources. Yet, benefit-cost studies often report that the costs of water quality protection exceed its benefits. One possible reason for this seeming ...paradox is that often only a narrow range of local water quality benefits are considered. In particular, the climate damages from water pollution have rarely been quantified. Recent advances in global water science allow the computation of the global methane emission from lakes caused by human nutrient enrichment (eutrophication). Here, we estimate the present value of the global social cost of eutrophication-driven methane emissions from lakes between 2015 and 2050 to be $7.5-$81 trillion (2015 $US), and in a case-study for one well-studied lake (Lake Erie) we find the global value of avoiding eutrophication exceeds local values of either beach use or sport fishing by 10-fold.
Abstract
We examine the net benefits of social distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19 in USA. Social distancing saves lives but imposes large costs on society due to reduced economic activity. We ...use epidemiological and economic forecasting to perform a rapid benefit–cost analysis of controlling the COVID-19 outbreak. Assuming that social distancing measures can substantially reduce contacts among individuals, we find net benefits of about $5.2 trillion in our benchmark case. We examine the magnitude of the critical parameters that might imply negative net benefits, including the value of statistical life and the discount rate. A key unknown factor is the speed of economic recovery with and without social distancing measures in place. A series of robustness checks also highlight the key role of the value of mortality risk reductions and discounting in the analysis and point to a need for effective economic stimulus when the outbreak has passed.
Hesitancy Toward a COVID-19 Vaccine Thunström, Linda; Ashworth, Madison; Finnoff, David ...
EcoHealth,
03/2021, Letnik:
18, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The scientific community has come together in a mass mobilization to combat the public health risks of COVID-19, including efforts to develop a vaccine. However, the success of any vaccine depends on ...the share of the population that gets vaccinated. We designed a survey experiment in which a nationally representative sample of 3,133 adults in the USA stated their intentions to vaccinate themselves and their children for COVID-19. The factors that we varied across treatments were: the stated severity and infectiousness of COVID-19 and the stated source of the risk information (White House or the Centers for Disease Control). We find that 20% of people in the USA intend to decline the vaccine. We find no statistically significant effect on vaccine intentions from the severity of COVID-19. In contrast, we find that the degree of infectiousness of the coronavirus influences vaccine intentions and that inconsistent risk messages from public health experts and elected officials may reduce vaccine uptake. However, the most important determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy seem to be distrust of the vaccine safety (including uncertainty due to vaccine novelty), as well as general vaccine avoidance, as implied by not having had a flu shot in the last two years.
The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is a tremendous scientific response to the current global pandemic. However, vaccines per se do not save lives and restart economies. Their success depends ...on the number of people getting vaccinated. We used a survey experiment to examine the impact on vaccine intentions of a variety of public health messages identified as particularly promising: three messages that emphasize different benefits from the vaccines (personal health, the health of others, and the recovery of local and national economies) and one message that emphasizes vaccine safety. Because people will likely be exposed to multiple messages in the real world, we also examined the effect of these messages in combination. Based on a nationally quota representative sample of 3,048 adults in the United States, our findings suggest that several forms of public messages can increase vaccine intentions, but messaging that emphasizes personal health benefits had the largest impact.
Two distinct strategies for controlling an emerging epidemic are physical distancing and regular testing with self-isolation. These strategies are especially important before effective vaccines or ...treatments become widely available. The testing strategy has been promoted frequently but used less often than physical distancing to mitigate COVID-19. We compared the performance of these strategies in an integrated epidemiological and economic model that includes a simple representation of transmission by "superspreading," wherein a relatively small fraction of infected individuals cause a large share of infections. We examined the economic benefits of distancing and testing over a wide range of conditions, including variations in the transmissibility and lethality of the disease meant to encompass the most prominent variants of COVID-19 encountered so far. In a head-to-head comparison using our primary parameter values, both with and without superspreading and a declining marginal value of mortality risk reductions, an optimized testing strategy outperformed an optimized distancing strategy. In a Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis, an optimized policy that combined the two strategies performed better than either one alone in more than 25% of random parameter draws. Insofar as diagnostic tests are sensitive to viral loads, and individuals with high viral loads are more likely to contribute to superspreading events, superspreading enhances the relative performance of testing over distancing in our model. Both strategies performed best at moderate levels of transmissibility, somewhat lower than the transmissibility of the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2.
A common refrain in the environmental economics literature is the need for additional estimates of environmental and natural resource values. Yet economists have paid little formal attention to the ...value of information (VOI) provided by non-market valuation studies, and whether this value justifies the cost. We develop a novel VOI model to quantify the benefit of non-market valuation studies conducted to expand the body of value estimates in the literature, and hence available for use in policy analyses. The approach is designed to capitalize on information available through preexisting valuation meta-data, and can be applied to any valuation meta-regression that is suitable to inform policy decisions. We illustrate the approach for a prototype nationwide water-quality improvement policy in the United States, assuming that policy benefits are evaluated using benefit transfer based on a meta-regression model of willingness-to-pay. Our results suggest that, when evaluating nationwide water quality regulations with uncertain net benefits, the VOI from a typical water quality valuation study will almost certainly exceed the cost. We also examine how VOI varies with study design features and information gaps in the literature, thereby illustrating how the approach can inform research priorities.
Physical distancing measures are important tools to control disease spread, especially in the absence of treatments and vaccines. While distancing measures can safeguard public health, they also can ...profoundly impact the economy and may have important indirect effects on the environment. The extent to which physical distancing measures should be applied therefore depends on the trade-offs between their health benefits and their economic costs. We develop an epidemiological-economic model to examine the optimal duration and intensity of physical distancing measures aimed to control the spread of COVID-19. In an application to the United States, our model considers the trade-off between the lives saved by physical distancing—both directly from stemming the spread of the virus and indirectly from reductions in air pollution during the period of physical distancing—and the short- and long-run economic costs that ensue from such measures. We examine the effect of air pollution co-benefits on the optimal physical distancing policy and conduct sensitivity analyses to gauge the influence of several key parameters and uncertain model assumptions. Using recent estimates of the association between airborne particulate matter and the virulence of COVID-19, we find that accounting for air pollution co-benefits can significantly increase the intensity and duration of the optimal physical distancing policy. To conclude, we broaden our discussion to consider the possibility of durable changes in peoples’ behavior that could alter local markets, the global economy, and our relationship to nature for years to come.
Changes in the type and prevalence of human diseases have occurred during shifts in human social organization, for example, from hunting and gathering to agriculture and with urbanization during the ...Industrial Revolution. The recent emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases appears to be driven by globalization and ecological disruption. We propose that habitat destruction and biodiversity loss associated with biotic homogenization can increase the incidence and distribution of infectious diseases affecting humans. The clearest connection between biotic homogenization and infectious disease is the spread of nonindigenous vectors and pathogens. The loss of predators and hosts that dilute pathogen transmission can also increase the incidence of vectorborne illnesses. Other mechanisms include enhanced abiotic conditions for pathogens and vectors and higher host-pathogen encounter rates. Improved understanding of these causal mechanisms can inform decisionmaking on biodiversity conservation as an effective way to protect human health.
Create a culture of experiments in environmental programs Ferraro, Paul J.; Cherry, Todd L.; Shogren, Jason F. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
08/2023, Letnik:
381, Številka:
6659
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Organizations need a better “learning by doing” approach
An understanding of cause and effect is central to the design of effective environmental policies and programs. But environmental scientists ...and practitioners typically rely on field experience, case studies, and retrospective evaluations of programs that were not designed to generate evidence about cause and effect. Using such methods can lead to ineffective or even counterproductive programs. To help strengthen inferences about cause and effect, environmental organizations could rely more on formal experimentation within their programs, which would leverage the power of science while maintaining a “learning by doing” approach. Although formal experimentation is a cornerstone of science and is increasingly embedded in nonenvironmental social programs, it is virtually absent in environmental programs. We highlight key obstacles to such experimentation and suggest opportunities to overcome them.
Deforestation is the second largest anthropogenic source of carbon dioxide emissions and options for its reduction are integral to climate policy. In addition to providing potentially low cost and ...near-term options for reducing global carbon emissions, reducing deforestation also could support biodiversity conservation. However, current understanding of the potential benefits to biodiversity from forest carbon offset programs is limited. We compile spatial data on global forest carbon, biodiversity, deforestation rates, and the opportunity cost of land to examine biodiversity conservation benefits from an international program to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation. Our results indicate limited geographic overlap between the least-cost areas for retaining forest carbon and protecting biodiversity. Therefore, carbon-focused policies will likely generate substantially lower benefits to biodiversity than a more biodiversity-focused policy could achieve. These results highlight the need to systematically consider co-benefits, such as biodiversity in the design and implementation of forest conservation programs to support international climate policy.
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