32 results
1.1 - alternative perspective
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- By Mike Holland, Independent Consultant, Ecometrics Research and Consulting
- Edited by Bjorn Lomborg, Copenhagen Business School
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- Book:
- Prioritizing Development
- Published online:
- 30 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 07 June 2018, pp 35-36
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Summary
As realization has grown of the impact of air pollution, so too has it become clear that the effects of individual pollutants are linked and that they cannot be considered purely in isolation. Health has become the prime driver of air pollution policies in North America and Europe since the mid-1990s, following new analysis that found detectable effects at levels previously considered “safe” and no evidence for an exposure threshold for fine particulates.
Considering Larsen's chapter, the first point is that the focus is on epidemiology, which in isolation provides no proof of causality. However, the evidence in this case is considered to demonstrate causality, so the author's reliance on epidemiological data is not problematic. However, there is more problem with attribution of health impacts to fine particles because other pollutants such as ozone, SO2, NO2, and dioxins also have an effect. Ozone impacts may add 20 percent or more to the total damage quantified in European policy assessments for fine particles. NO2 may cause greater impacts still, perhaps of a similar magnitude to fine particles. Larsen's analysis may therefore be an underestimate of impacts because he focuses on PM2.5 alone.
Another question is whether all particles have an equal impact on health. Although their different chemical and physical nature must make some difference, fine particles do generally appear to be harmful to health. Differentiating them is unlikely to make any significant changes to policy necessary.
An important issue is the actual impact of pollution, which is inferred to be the sole cause of death. In fact, it could also be one of a number of contributory factors that affect longevity or, alternatively, a final trigger for death. Such questions areof relevance for valuing mortality effects. Larsen states that there are four times as many deaths attributed to air pollution as to infant and maternal undernutrition. However, this comparison may not be valid because child and maternal mortality accounts for a much higher quantity of lost life expectancy.
Although mortality is clearly important, the effect on morbidity also warrants attention, for example, the impact of cancers, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. This adds to the health burden both directly and via the demands it places on the health system. We should also remember that the benefits of clean air policies are broader than health alone.
Weak convergence to extremal processes and record events for non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical systems
- MARK HOLLAND, MIKE TODD
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- Journal:
- Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems / Volume 39 / Issue 4 / April 2019
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 07 September 2017, pp. 980-1001
- Print publication:
- April 2019
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For a measure-preserving dynamical system $({\mathcal{X}},f,\unicode[STIX]{x1D707})$, we consider the time series of maxima $M_{n}=\max \{X_{1},\ldots ,X_{n}\}$ associated to the process $X_{n}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}(f^{n-1}(x))$ generated by the dynamical system for some observable $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}:{\mathcal{X}}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$. Using a point-process approach we establish weak convergence of the process $Y_{n}(t)=a_{n}(M_{[nt]}-b_{n})$ to an extremal process $Y(t)$ for suitable scaling constants $a_{n},b_{n}\in \mathbb{R}$. Convergence here takes place in the Skorokhod space $\mathbb{D}(0,\infty )$ with the $J_{1}$ topology. We also establish distributional results for the record times and record values of the corresponding maxima process.
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2015
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- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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4 - Impacts of air pollution on building materials
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 131-159
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Summary
Summary
This chapter describes two methods for quantifying air pollution damage of buildings in physical and economic terms; one is bottom-up, the other top-down. We begin by showing how the amenity cost can be obtained from the repair cost, without the need for a contingent valuation. Then we describe the effect of air pollution on the main building materials and we show the corresponding exposure–response functions. Sections 4.4 and 4.5 describe the bottom-up and the top-down methods. The results suggest that typical damage costs in the EU are in a range 0.1 to 0.4 €/kg of SO2; this is a very small percentage (about 1 to 4%) of the costs of health damages due to SO2. By contrast with the rather detailed calculations for SO2, only very preliminary estimates have been made for the damage costs from soiling caused by particulate emissions. These suggest values in the order of 0.07 to 0.3 €/kg of particulates emitted by combustion; like for SO2, this is only a very small percentage of the corresponding costs of health damages. For damage to historical buildings and monuments, despite the fact that this was one of the early motivations towards dealing with acid rain, we have regrettably no good numbers, merely a very rough estimate for France.
Appendix A - Nomenclature, symbols, units and conversion factors
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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Summary
Symbols
Our notation is somewhat different from many reports of the EPA and other organizations because we follow the custom of physics and engineering textbooks where a single letter is used for the “family name” of a variable, with subscripts to distinguish different variants. We choose subscripts that are fairly explicit and in most cases self-explanatory.
It is helpful to distinguish different substances by adding subscripts to some units: for instance mwat3 for a m3 of water. Likewise we sometimes add a subscript to the mass for clarity, e.g. kgsoil for a kg of soil.
To minimize the risk of confusion about units for items that can be stated as quantities or as rates (i.e. quantity per time), we indicate rates by dots over the respective symbol, the usual notation for time derivatives; for example if m = mass of emitted pollutant (kg), ṁ = emission rate (e.g. kg/yr).
For certain variables we sometimes add the location x as argument to indicate a possible dependence on the location where they are evaluated; when x is not shown, the average over the entire region is understood, for example kdep = average of kdep(x) over all locations x and SERF= population-weighted average of SERF(x).
Index
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 665-671
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7 - Atmospheric dispersion of pollutants
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 212-317
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Summary
Summary
Atmospheric dispersion and chemistry is a complex subject, for which this chapter offers only a brief introduction, with focus on a special class of models that are appropriate for damage cost calculations. Such models can be relatively simple, because damage costs involve long-term averages over large areas. Gaussian plume models, suitable for the local zone, are described in some detail and equations are provided for a specific version to allow the reader to carry out calculations. Further from the source, the removal of pollutants from the atmosphere becomes important and is crucial for regional modeling. The removal rates can be expressed in terms of a velocity that we call the depletion velocity, a quantity that accounts for dry and wet deposition and, for reactive pollutants, chemical transformation. To illustrate key features of regional modeling, we develop a simple model and compare it with results from the EMEP model. We present several methods of estimating depletion velocities. We also develop a simple model for an approximate calculation of impacts and damage costs due to air pollution. It is called the “uniform world model” (UWM), because it is exact in the limit where the depletion velocity and the receptor density are uniform. We have validated the model by about 200 comparisons with detailed site-specific calculations using the EcoSense software of the ExternE projects in Europe, Asia and the Americas. For emissions from stacks of 50 m or more, detailed calculations agree with the simplest version of the UWM, within a factor of two in most cases. We provide modifications for site, stack height and receptor distribution that greatly improve the accuracy and applicability of the UWM. The UWM is very relevant for policy applications because it yields representative results for typical situations, rather than for one specific site.
11 - Uncertainty of damage costs
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 440-496
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Summary
Summary
This chapter presents an analysis of the uncertainties of damage costs, all the more important because their uncertainties are large. Two methods for the analysis of uncertainties are presented. One is the customary Monte Carlo approach; it is general and powerful, but opaque because it produces only numbers. As an alternative we present an analytical approach that is suitable for multiplicative models, in particular the “uniform world model” (UWM) for damage costs; it has the advantage of being transparent and easy to modify if one wants to test different assumptions about the various sources of uncertainty. We show results, based on a literature review of the various sources of uncertainty in the steps of the damage cost calculation. We find that the uncertainty of damage costs can be characterized, with a sufficiently good approximation, by a lognormal probability distribution with multiplicative confidence intervals around the median estimate μg (a random variable has a lognormal distribution if the distribution of the logarithm of the variable is normal). The width of the confidence intervals is given by the geometric standard deviation σg, such that the 68% confidence interval ranges from μg/σg to μg σg. For the classical air pollutants (PM, NOx, SO2, VOC) we find that σg is approximately 3; for toxic metals we estimate that it is about 4 and for dioxins and greenhouse gases about 5. We also present a simple method for the uncertainty of the sum of damage costs due to different pollutants, for instance the damage cost of a kWh of electricity.
2 - Tools for environmental impact and damage assessment
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 21-62
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Summary
Summary
Countless tools, models and software packages have been developed for the analysis of environmental problems. This chapter focuses on tools that allow the assessment of environmental impacts and the comparison of technologies and policy choices. Impact Pathway Analysis (IPA) is presented in some detail because it is the correct approach for quantifying impacts and damage costs of pollution. Section 2.2 is an introduction to IPA; detailed discussions of the various elements follow in Chapters 3 to 9. We also discuss Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the relation between LCA and IPA. Difficulties and problems with the use of the various tools are addressed in Sections 2.4 and 2.5. Section 2.6 proposes an integrated framework for the analysis of environmental questions.
Overview of tools
Starting point: the DPSIR framework
There are a great number of tools, methods and models for the analysis of environmental problems. They differ in approach and objectives, but there is also much overlap and they are difficult to classify in a systematic scheme. We will not attempt a systematic survey but will focus instead on a few key features that are crucial for decision making, namely the ability to:
define the appropriate scope for the analysis,
model the dispersion of the pollutant(s) in the environment,
calculate the exposure of the receptors,
calculate the impacts,
assign monetary values to the impacts,
rank the options and identify the best choice(s).
3 - Exposure–response functions for health impacts
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 63-130
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Summary
Summary
This chapter is fairly long and detailed because health impacts weigh heavily in the estimation of damage costs. It begins with an overview of the health impacts of air pollution. It then describes the methods used for measuring the health impacts of pollution. The key ingredient in the calculation of damage costs is the exposure–response function (ERF), and we discuss its general features in Section 3.3. The rest of the chapter presents ERFs for specific pollutants and end points. Section 3.4 discusses mortality and life expectancy, and Section 3.5 presents morbidity impacts of the classical air pollutants. Finally, Section 3.6 addresses other pollutants, especially the toxic metals. A summary of the ERFs used by ExternE (2008) will be provided in Table 12.3 in Chapter 12.
A word of caution should be given in relation to the contents of this chapter. There is a great deal of research going on into the health effects of air pollution at the current time. The core position defined here reflects relatively recent consensus, but this will inevitably be revised as more evidence becomes available. The two areas where this is most likely to make a difference concern quantification of the long-term (chronic) effects of exposure to ozone, and the effects of exposure to NO2. For the latter, there are significant questions of causality being considered – are the effects linked to NO2 a true effect of the pollutant, or is the pollutant simply an indicator of other stresses? Readers should refer to the final reports of the REVIHAAP and HRAPIE studies led by WHO-Europe on behalf of the European Commission, once they become available, for an updated perspective. Whilst we accept that new findings will influence the choice of response functions, the principles described in this chapter are likely to remain robust.
10 - The costs of climate change
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 407-439
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Summary
Summary
After a brief explanation of the greenhouse effect, we present some data from the 2007 assessment by the IPCC (2007a), the principal international body that is working on climate change. These data show the main anthropogenic contributions to climate change, as well as the increases in global average temperature and sea level that have been occurring since the industrial revolution. Since the impacts depend on cumulative emissions and involve long time constants, one needs to define emission scenarios before one can estimate the corresponding impacts, a topic addressed in Section 10.2. We then describe, in Section 10.3, the impacts that can be expected and discuss some of the difficulties in estimating the corresponding damage costs. In Section 10.4 we review damage cost estimates in the literature. It is also of interest to look at abatement costs, see Section 10.5. Finally, we discuss some of the implications of a CO2 tax in the light of emission reductions required to stabilize the climate at acceptable levels.
Greenhouse gases (GHG) and their effects: some data
Climate change is a vast subject and we cannot do it justice with a single chapter. Here we merely give an introduction to the problem of estimating the damage costs of GHG.
That anthropogenic emissions of CO2 would increase global temperatures had been recognized at the end of the nineteenth century, when the great chemist Arrhenius attempted a first estimate of the temperature increase that could be expected if the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles relative to the pre-industrial level: he found that the average temperature at the surface of the earth would increase by about 5 to 6 K (Weart, 2008), not very far from current estimates, generally around 2.5 K.
Contents
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp v-xii
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List of tables
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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Acknowledgements
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 10 July 2014, pp xxxiii-xxxvi
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15 - Results for transport
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 10 July 2014, pp 581-625
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Summary
Summary
In this chapter, we illustrate the use of external cost estimates for evaluating transportation options. We begin by presenting damage cost estimates in Section 15.1, with results for the EU and for the USA.
In Section 15.2 we use the damage cost estimates of ExternE to compare a hybrid passenger car with a conventional car on a lifecycle basis. In Section 15.3 we look at walking and bicycling as alternatives to commuting to work by car; here the reduction of air pollution is a significant collective benefit, but much more important is the value of the health gain for the individuals who make the switch to an active transport mode. We present sufficient detail in these two sections to show how the calculations are done.
In Section 15.4 we compare the greenhouse gas emissions of the main transport modes. In Section 15.5 we conclude the chapter with a discussion of policies that can internalize the damage costs of transport, including the low emission zones (LEZ) that have been created in many cities of Europe.
External cost estimates for transport
Vehicle emissions
In the EU the emissions of vehicles must not exceed the limits specified in the EURO standards. As an example Table 15.1 shows the standards for passenger cars. Analogous standards are in force in the USA. The regulations of China, India and Australia are based on the EURO standards, although with different implementation schedules.
These standards are to be respected in actual use, and compliance is determined by testing the vehicle with a standardized test cycle. Developing realistic test cycles is difficult because the emissions vary strongly with driving conditions (cold engine, warm engine, speed, acceleration, etc.). There are always questions about how representative the tests are of typical driving conditions. The EURO standards specify the tests to be used for certifying compliance by vehicle manufacturers. The performance under other conditions can be estimated by using the COPERT 4 software of the European Environment Agency.
1 - Introduction
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 1-20
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Summary
The responsibility of those who exercise power in a democratic society is not to reflect inflamed public feeling but to help form its understanding
Felix Frankfurter (former Supreme Court Justice) (1928) Carved in stone on the wall of the Federal Court House, BostonSummary
In this chapter we explain why one needs to evaluate environmental costs and benefits. Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is necessary for many choices relating to public policy, especially in the field of environmental protection, to avoid costly mistakes. Even when other, non-monetary criteria must also be taken into account, a CBA should be carried out whenever appropriate. Without a monetary evaluation of damage costs one can only do a cost-effectiveness analysis, as illustrated in Section 1.3. In Section 1.4 we explain how to determine the optimal level of pollution abatement, as a simple example of the use of a CBA. Impact pathway analysis (IPA), the methodology for quantifying damage costs or environmental benefits, is sketched in Section 1.5. The internalization of external costs is addressed in Section 1.6.
Why quantify environmental benefits?
The answer emerges through asking another question: “how else can we decide how much to spend to protect the environment?” The simple demand for “zero pollution” sometimes made by well-meaning but naïve environmentalists is totally unrealistic: our economy would be paralyzed because the technologies for perfectly clean production do not exist.
In the past, most decisions about environmental policy were made without quantifying the benefits. During the 1960s and 1970s increasing pollution and growing prosperity led to increased demand for cleaner air, and at the same time there was sufficient technological progress in the development of equipment such as flue gas desulfurization to allow cleanup without prohibitive costs. The demand for cleanup became overwhelming and environmental regulations were imposed with no cost– benefit analysis.
14 - Results for waste treatment
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- Book:
- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 560-580
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Summary
Summary
In this chapter, we evaluate the damage costs of landfill and incineration of municipal solid waste in Europe and North America, with due account for transport and for energy and materials recovery. Whilst air pollution provides some of the most significant externalities of waste management, the comparison of landfill and incineration also needs to consider potential impacts on drinking water due to leachates from landfill. A full impact pathway analysis of leachate is not possible here given that such impacts are extremely site specific. This is not to say that it could not be done for a specific site, though even this is far from straightforward given the complexity of the environmental pathways and the long time horizon of persistent pollutants. As an alternative we consider an extreme scenario, based on impact pathway thinking, to show that they are not worth worrying about if a landfill is built and managed according to regulations such as those of the EU. The damage costs due to the construction of the waste treatment facility are negligible, and so are the damage costs of waste transport, illustrated with an arbitrary choice of a 100 km round trip by a 16 tonne truck. The benefits of materials recovery make a relatively small contribution to the total damage cost. The only significant contributions come from direct emissions (from the landfill or incinerator) and from avoided emissions due to energy recovery (from an incinerator). Damage costs for incineration range from about 1.5 to 21 €/twaste, extremely dependent on the assumed scenario for energy recovery. For landfill the cost ranges from about 11 to 14 €/twaste; it is dominated by greenhouse gas emissions because only a fraction of the CH4 can be captured (here assumed to be 70%). Amenity costs (odor, visual impact, noise) are highly site-specific and we only cite results from a literature survey which indicate that such costs could make a significant contribution, on the order of 1 €/twaste.
9 - Monetary valuation
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp 356-406
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Summary
Summary
The chapter on monetary valuation begins with a discussion of discounting, a tool that is necessary for the correct accounting of costs that occur at different times. A particularly important and controversial issue is the intergenerational discount rate, in Section 9.1.3. This is followed, in Section 9.2, by an overview of valuation methods, especially for non-market goods. Section 9.3 addresses the important case of the valuation of mortality, especially the loss of life expectancy due to air pollution. Morbidity valuation follows in Section 9.4, including a discussion of DALY and QALY scores. Section 9.5 addresses the valuation of neurotoxic impacts (value of an IQ point). Section 9.6 discusses the transfer of values to situations that are different from the original valuation studies.
Note that the valuation of some impact categories has been discussed in other chapters: Chapter 4 for buildings, Chapter 5 for agricultural losses and ecosystems, Chapter 6 for noise and traffic congestion (plus brief comments on visibility, non-renewable resources, accidents, employment, and security of energy supply), and Chapter 10 for global warming. A summary of the monetary values for health impacts will be provided in Table 12.3 of Chapter 12.
Comparing present and future costs
The effect of time on the value of money
It may be appropriate to begin this chapter with a tool that is needed whenever there are costs that occur at different times. Such a cost must be adjusted to a common time basis because a dollar (or any other currency) unit to be paid in the future does not have the same value as a dollar available today. This time dependence of money is due to two, totally different, causes. The first is inflation, the well-known and ever present erosion of the value of our currency. The second reflects the fact that a dollar today can buy goods to be enjoyed immediately or it can be invested to increase its value by profit or interest. Thus a dollar that becomes available in the future is less desirable than a dollar today; its value must be discounted. This is true even if there is no inflation. Both inflation and discounting are usually characterized in terms of annual rates.
Preface
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 10 July 2014, pp xxix-xxxii
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Summary
The book is addressed to
Researchers interested in the calculation of environmental impacts;
Policy-makers and their advisors, in energy and environmental policy;
Graduate students and advanced undergraduates in environmental science.
In the past, decisions about environmental policy were made without quantifying the benefits. Pollution had become so bad, for instance with the Great London Smog of 1952 and rivers like the Rhine becoming too poisoned for fish to survive, that the demand for cleanup became overwhelming and environmental regulations were imposed in the absence of a cost–benefit analysis (CBA). The main sources of pollution and their impacts were obvious, and the regulations were clearly beneficial.
Nowadays, the remaining environmental problems tend to be more complex and so is the task of finding suitable solutions. For example, what should we do with our waste? Should what remains after recycling be incinerated or put into landfill, either method having some harmful impacts? Fortunately, environmental science has progressed to the point where the problems can be analyzed with a fair degree of confidence and CBA can help us to identify the best solutions. When cost-effective measures are proposed, CBA is a powerful tool for convincing concerned stakeholders that such measures should indeed be implemented.
Calculation of the damage costs of pollution (“external costs”) is multidisciplinary to the extreme, requiring expertise in engineering, environmental modeling, epidemiology, ecology, economics, statistics, life cycle assessment, and so on. This presents quite a challenge for the writing of a book on the subject. We do have a broad expertise in most of these fields, demonstrated by our publications in fields as diverse as economics, dispersion modeling, epidemiology, risk analysis, life cycle assessment, energy policy, waste treatment, and transport policy. We have been very active in all phases of the ExternE (External Costs of Energy) project series of the European Commission (EC), DG Research.
List of figures
- Ari Rabl, Joseph V. Spadaro, Mike Holland
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- Book:
- How Much Is Clean Air Worth?
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- 05 July 2014
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- 10 July 2014, pp xiii-xvii
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